I’ve done so lit­tle writ­ing in the past months, less so here.  This exists as a bizarre con­trast to the changes and pur­suits that my life has held in the last year.  I’ve been liv­ing a life out­side of my nor­mal scope — been directly answer­ing the ques­tion I wrote one year past about when it is I’ll settle.

There are home-brew fire­works explod­ing out­side.  The smell of sul­phur mixed with the after­math of thun­der­storms, the heavy, humid air rid­ing in through the win­dows on a light breeze.  I smell dis­tance in the atmos­phere, the teth­ers of mem­ory to pre­vi­ous life.

One year ago to this date I was wind­ing up what was to be an epic loop around Lake Supe­rior.  One year ago to this date the snow­ball effect of a burned arm, has­tened train­ing, and a seriously-pained knee derailed the plan I laid out.  One year ago to this date I chose a series of fresh steps, many of them a hell of a lot more chal­leng­ing than I expected.  One year ago to this date I decided to give a more set­tled life a try.

So here I am, walk­ing a path with a good job, a solid rela­tion­ship, a home with an actual lease — the day to day life that is almost impos­si­ble to imag­ine when work­ing out the throes of a sea­sonal one.  I’m sat­is­fied, mostly, enjoy­ing the com­fort of a day to day breeze, not unlike the day to day rep­e­ti­tion of the Antarc­tic win­ter — the smooth­ness of reg­u­lar­ity.  Still, on that sul­fur wind mov­ing through the win­dow, there I catch a hint of the call to move.  On that wind I hear a ques­tion that begs con­sid­er­a­tion.  Am I drifting?

Life, by my ten­ants, should be one of active choice.  We all make them, every­day, every moment.  Most of our choices as to our day to day lives are buried in a sub­con­scious — in the back of a rep­til­ian brain or buried behind greater con­cerns.  We make them, accept the con­se­quences, and move on with­out an ana­lyza­tion of the where, the how, or the why.  Too many choices with­out reflec­tion, how­ever, and we drift.  We sail the seas of our lives accord­ing to the cur­rents, for­go­ing a more inter­ac­tive approach.

Often, this is done because it can be eas­ier to drift down a path than to look directly at it and real­ize the dif­fi­culty or the wrong­ness of it.

By my ten­ants, walk­ing with one’s eyes closed is timidity.

So lately, I’ve been try­ing to hold myself to that stan­dard, to watch the steps that I am tak­ing and to make cer­tain that they are the ones I choose.  That if there lie any dif­fi­culty in my path, I choose to accept the sit­u­a­tion, watch it with open eyes, and work with it.  I choose to strug­gle by choice that walk blind­ingly on.

In a head that is filled with ques­tions with a mind that rarely qui­ets, that can be a daunt­ing task to encounter (and credit goes to those who have to live with a brain that never rests with ques­tions).  Regard­less, I am proud to be where I am, sat­is­fied to have gar­nered what I now call my life.  When I ask if I’m drift­ing?  I don’t think so.

Will that stop me from ask­ing the same ques­tion tomor­row, or next week?

Absolutely not.