(Intermission)

Ok, so I'm gonna post a lot of cool stuff about Wellington now that I've arrived here, and things ARE super cool, but I have to take a quick break to freak out, so bear with me.

I don't know what I'm going to do with my life when I get back to the States.

Yeah, I know I'm repeating myself with this "what am I doing with my life" stuff, but I just feel so lost sometimes. I was walking around at the zoo today and enjoying the animals and thinking about how I wanted to be a zookeeper for a while, and that got be thinking about all the things I've wanted to "be" in my life.

The first time I remember answering that "what do you want to be when you grow up?" question, I answered that I wanted to be a part-time veterinarian and part-time player for the WNBA. I couldn't settle on just one thing even then. Over time I've thought seriously about being a vet, a fiction writer, a zookeeper, a museum curator, a journalist, a farmer, etc, etc.

I know my career isn't ME, and I think as a whole people are too focused on defining themselves by the job they have, but I DO need to figure out how I'm going to earn money, and how I'm going to afford a place to live, and WHERE I want to live, among other things.

While I'm here in New Zealand I'm living on borrowed time. I'm learning tons, and making enough money to travel around and see things. Kerouac would be proud. I'm making it as a vagabond, and I'm proud of it. BUT, people are already asking me about what I'm going to do when I get home, and I don't have an answer. There are so many possibilities, and yet everytime I try to follow one possibility I seem to hit a brick wall.

If I want to go and be a vet, I'd have to go back to school for a year or two to qualify for vet school, and then do that. Another 6 years in school. If I wanted to be a vet tech, which would be pretty cool, I'd have to go back to school for two years, but then my bachelor's would pretty much be wasted.

If I wanted to be a zookeeper I'd need to go back to school for between 1 and 4 years and then find an internship. Starting my way from the bottom, again.

If I wanted to be a writer, I'd have to get something published. Ditto being a journalist. So far this is looking the most likely, haha.

If I wanted to be a museum curator I'd have to get an internship at a museum. This is fairly possible, but I'm not sure I want to work in a museum, as that usually means living in a city.

If I wanted to be a farmer, I'd need to get a position on a farm (working my way into a management position) while I make money for land or a farm of my own. I could be working at that for at least ten years before seeing anything come of it.

I don't know, guys. Everything just seems so impossible, sometimes. I'm a go-getter, and if I really felt passionately about one thing, I'd work for it even though it DID seem impossible, but I'm pulled in different directions with no clear sign saying "THIS IS YOUR CALLING."

I need some direction. Anyone got any ideas?

"If you are depressed you are living in the past.
If you are anxious you are living in the future.
If you are at peace you are living in the present."
-Lao Tzu