Wanderlust Relapse

Wow, this is tough. When I flew home from Paris in May I thought because I felt ready to come home for a while that this transition into normal daily life and work would be easy. Boy was I wrong! I've only been working my "big girl job" for two weeks and already I'm trolling the internet for future jobs to apply for: in my current city, cities I've lived in before and cities I've never even been to but I hear they're great.

Don't get me wrong, my job is great. I've already learned a lot and I anticipate I will learn something new every day for the next two years. The pay is fair, my co-clerk, the other staff and the judges are all amazing to work with. So far everyone is friendly and willing to help each other.

But something is really nagging at me- it's this semi-permanence. I don't do well with it, I never have. Now here it is staring me in the face. What is so fundamentally wrong with me that I can't just enjoy this time like a normal person? Anyway, it's been getting to me enough that I've been thinking about the way, way far off future, but I still want to enjoy my time here. So I've been thinking out loud in front of Leigh (who is less than thrilled with my current little bout of crazy) and I've come to some general guidelines that she seems OK with.

So it looks like we'll plan to stay in Alaska for about five years. I have two years of work for the court system lined up, which is great. I'll learn a ton and meet lots of people. Hopefully this will build a nice foundation for my career. Then I'll try to get another government position working with business, finance, natural resources, or something else I find somewhat interesting (note that criminal law was not mentioned in that list in any way) for about 3 years. Leigh is hoping to find something she likes in health administration and might go for her RN also.

After 5 years I think we'll be ready to leave Alaska (unless something changes between now and then, of course, but seeing as I can barely stay in one place for a year I doubt it) I might get a fellowship or something. We're talking about Seattle, of course, but Washington, DC is also possible because it's easy for me to become licensed there. Recently we've been talking more about moving to Canada and I'm really liking the thought of living in Montreal.

Montreal, QC, Canada

Seattle, WA

Washington, DC

Of course there's always the Europe issue. I love Europe and lately Leigh has said a few times that she misses France. If I find a fellowship or something similar in France, Germany, or BeNeLux I think we'll have to take another leap of faith. Even though I was ready to come home to see my family again I wasn't quite finished with the Continent. It would be great for us to have another go around with Europe as real adults with real jobs and see how it goes.

Strasbourg, France

Speaking of Europe, of course we've been talking about traveling in a less permanent sense as well. During the summer we talked about a Southeast Asia trip sometime in the next few years, and that's still definitely on our list of things to do fairly soon. Additionally, I'd really like to go back to Taize before I'm 30 so I can stay more than one week. So while we're living in Alaska for the next 5 years it's very likely we'll take one big trip to SE Asia for about a month and also a big trip to Europe. I'll probably go to Taize for about a month before Leigh meets me there and then we want to visit Germany and maybe a few other places.

Can you tell we're both feeling a bit isolated? Is it possible to have island fever when you're not on an island? Maybe it's called something else like Arctic Fever?? Hmm...

The entire weekend was spent indoors relaxing. I wasn't feeling well yesterday and today we made a serious attempt at breaking the laziest girls in Alaska record. I think we may have succeeded. Anyway, back to work tomorrow. I hope my mind and soul settle in quickly so I don't go off my rocker...