Doing it and doin' it and doin' it well...

I'm not sure if it's ironic or appropriate that I am shoving my face with Thai food as I write this. I've been thinking a lot about my trip lately and missing Thailand oh so much. The food, the people, the scenery. I could go on and on. Part of what I miss the most though is the person I was when I was there. I know that seems ridiculous, but the person that I was in the summer of 2011 was confident and happy and didn't give a shit about what people thought. I was out there doing stuff! Not pondering what it would be like if I was doing stuff or complaining about not doing stuff...

Sadly, that does not feel like the person I am now. Now I am living in Ithaca feeling as though this place has sucked the life out of me. That's harsh, I know. Prior to moving from Boston, I had such high hopes for this "city" in Upstate New York-- It was a small, but eclectic town with a diverse, big city feel that held a job I had worked really hard for. Not to mention, it was a place to start over. I didn't want to think of it that way because for the first time I wasn't moving because I was trying to run away from my life and that felt really good. But there was a little bit of truth to that-- a place to start over. I mean I knew no one and no one knew me. As such things go though you can never really start over. After all, I am inherently the same person as I have always been-- someone who loves new experiences but sometimes struggles to do things alone; someone who is open to meeting new people, but somehow always manages to feel a little lonely and awkward; and clearly someone who is inconsistent at best (forgive me loyal blog readers who have been requesting that I start writing again. Thank you for keeping the faith.) So maybe I was deluding myself into thinking that I had changed. In my defense though, I felt different and full of life. In Ithaca I am mostly alone and bored, which makes me very, very cranky. You can really only go on so many walks with the dogs, people! I have made a handful of good friends who are all coupled off and often busy with their partners, conquered the creation of homemade bread and pickles, finished more books in the last year than I have in the last 10 years and stayed up to date on Gossip Girl and Glee, but otherwise Ithaca has not given me much of anything aside from the desire to GET OUT! It probably doesn't help that most of my friends here are also hating on Ithaca and leaving soon.

Before I get ahead of myself though and go off on a rant about Ithaca, there is one amazingly lovely and wonderfully happy, happy thing that has come out of this place. Thanks to having nothing to do and no place to go and no one to hang out with (see I told you my negativity wouldn't go that far) I reconnected with New Hampshire Boy #1. Truthfully, he hadn't gone that far either since somehow we had managed to stay (mostly) "friends"/friends the whole time. After many nights of insanely long phone calls and a handful of awkward moments, we have since gotten back together and now I am totally and completely in love, like... smitten. As a result (see March 2010) New Hampshire is now officially off my shit list. Go ahead, vomit a little, I know you want to-- I mean even I am a little bit disgusted by how crazy I feel sometimes. Anyway, I won't bore you with the details of our romance, but let's just say I am awfully happy with that part of my life, so much so that we are both moving back to Boston!! Hurrah!

Okay, I know I started this post off being totally down and out and now you're probably thinking, what is this girl bitching about?! I promise I'll get back to my point even though I'm not entirely sure what that is right now. I love Thailand, I hate Ithaca, I love boys (mine in particular).... Okay, my point is that I want to write more. Yeah, yeah I know you're thinking that you've heard this all before. I am a fickle soul what can I say? But the other day I was sharing with the boy that I have always wanted to be a travel writer. And last year, I made a goal for myself that I was going to go to one new place (out of the country) a year. But it seems that given my new life plans (yay love! yay Boston!) that traveling this year may not be a possibility. So I decided, why wait to start writing again? I can write about Ithaca and wherever else I go to on the weekends (Keene, NH-- you better start getting a little more interesting) And it will all be good practice for when I actually decide to adhere to my life goals and go somewhere. I mean so much of what I loved about myself last year was that I was doing things, not thinking about them and hemming and hawing over whether or not something was the right decision or wrong one. I was just doing it and not caring and feeling pretty damn good about it all. So I'm trying to get back to that. Okay, so writing about Ithaca may not be the most exciting thing ever but the point is that I am doing something, not just talking about doing something....starting... now!