Perhaps

Perhaps I will never feel settled, I thought today.  Perhaps my wandering about, aimlessly, is actually where I have settled myself.  I have been trying to pinpoint exactly what this life of mine is meant to be all about.  And trying.  And trying.  And thinking and wondering.

Perhaps I am a dandelion.  I am aged and seeding, anticipating the wind that will blow me in all directions.

It's my very own perpetual, unyielding struggle to miraculously discover some sort of worth in it all.  When I think about what makes my heart stop or what steals the breath from my lungs, my minds eye too often envisions the crooked lines of a map; the green, shady ridges of mountain ranges spread across countries I have never been before; the blue rivers snaking across states; the multitude of roads that could take me to those paper mountains.  I imagine myself as a vagabond; a nomad; a traveler.  I used to imagine traveling to cities, glorified in my head by media and sparkling lights.  I imagined Paris and New York and London.

Now?  Not so much.  I yearn for the cottage tucked away in a forest or a cabin at the top of a mountain.  Every inch of me thirsts for a tent in Patagonia and waking up for the sun, rather than an alarm.

All of these things, though, feel greedy.  If I were to escape those societal urges to have a job and somehow traveled to all of the places I yearn for, what would I be doing but seeing?

Finally, I started looking into volunteering for conservation projects.  Nature has always mesmerized me.  The fact that we, as humans, see this world as our own has perplexed me always.  How we claim land and post "Private Property" signs as if it exists for the sole purpose of laying beneath our feet is a joke to me.  We may "own" these small patches while we're here, but it was here long before us and will continue on after us, so in reality, that land owns us.  It keeps us grounded to a place, for a lifetime for some people.

As I narrow down the things that I most certainly do not want for this life, I am gradually understanding those things that I do want.

The greatest want: to make a difference.  For these breaths to not be wasted and my time to matter.