Wanderlust

My year here has gone by with astonishing speed. I've made no secret of the fact that the time I've spent here has been nothing short of idyllic. Despite working a steady job and finally getting a life, my time here has been something of a vacation.

In this meantime, I've been able to hold off making some major decisions. I've been able to settle into life without a plan, without a map, and no clear vision of what I will be doing, say, 5 years from now. It's all still an absolute blank.

Is it all the open-endedness that is making me suddenly feel very antsy? Or is it because I am more of a free spirit than I actually thought and that the possibilities are the driving force behind my vague restlessness?

It's crazy. It's radical. It may be the by-product of an insanity resulting from suddenly being lost after being stuck on a plan for most of my life. At an age when I should be thinking about settling down, acquiring assets, making a family... I'm having fantasies about leaving medicine and working as a barista as I move from one country to another, seeing the world one city at a time.

Okay, maybe that's a little bit extreme... but you guys sort of get the picture.

I'd been conditioned to have very definite views on where I would be at this particular point in my life... done with my schooling and on the way to being established in my career; married to a stable, reliable guy; getting started on the 2.5 kids - pretty much on the way to living a comfortable, if ordinary, happily ever after. I'd always fancied myself as a home-and-hearth type of person, and I know I'm the kind of person who will always need to put down roots. I won't lie that I don't want all of the above someday - because I do. But...

Maybe not just yet.

I recently had lunch with a younger but wiser friend of mine - who has lived a much more interesting life than I have even if I have almost a decade of living over him. This is one of the perks of living in a land where people are all raised to indulge their wanderlust. Ozzies, I've found, are born nomads. Maybe it's because they have so much space to roam in.

There I was, whinging about how lucky he was that he could just up and go wherever he wanted on a whim, when he cut me off with a very succint, "And who told you that you couldn't?"

I started to give him a list. Society, family, my own need for security, blah, blah, blah... to which he countered, "But all of that is in your mind. Can't you do what you want and still be living up to people's expectations?"

Tantalizing thoughts.

His last piece of advice to address my restlessness? "Maybe it's just time for you to move again."

The roads are open, the possibilities - while not endless - do exist.
This is not me. I hate change. I don't want to go to another city and start over... do I?