Be here now

Okay, let’s level.

I have been on The Big Trip for 6-weeks now, and in the midst of having a blast, today is the first day that I have had to remind myself, “You are having fun. No really, this is a GOOD thing. You are happy and doing well. Believe it.” I am having an amazing time seeing new cities, visiting friends, exploring, and meeting new people – but… ugh, I don’t know. I am such a nester. I love having my home, my stuff, my routine, and the feeling that I am being productive. And after 6-weeks without a real home, or job, or sense of stability, I am starting to feel a little bit sad.

It is amazing to be here in Nashville, the city that I will soon call “home.” It is a vibrant community, full of young energy and music and interesting people. There is life to be lived here, and I cannot wait to jump in head-first in January. But right now, I feel a little bit crippled in that I DON’T live here, DON’T have a home, DON’T have a job, DON’T have any idea what my life here will look like. So how do I engage? How do I approach the city and the people? I am currently without definition. I don’t know how delineate myself, aside from being a girl with a suitcase who forgot all of her jewelry in Kansas City.

But I suppose that life cannot wait. I cannot just pause until January, when I assume my life will really begin again. This is my life, right here, right now. It’s a time unlike any other I will probably ever have.

And so on Saturday night, when I was being driven by a quadrapilegic in a wheelchair-accessible van to former-President Andrew Jackson’s homestead for a haunted tour of the grounds, I had to pinch myself. When a new friend took me to a bar set up in a greenhouse and opened my car door for me just because this is what guys in the south do, I had to chuckle. When I attended a church service alone and cried through all of the music just because it is amazing to hear an entire room of people sing, I simply sat in wonder. Is this my life?

Yes. Yes it is. And I choose to be here now.