So, now what?

It's beginning to feel a lot like spring these days. I am getting restless, as usual. I've been working at the same place for almost three years now and I am somewhat bored and feeling like there is no more room for growth or change there. I do like the organization and what it stands for, but I feel like there is so much more I could be doing.

I have so many conflicting thoughts about where to go with my life. I have never really wanted to be tied down to a place. Now that mom is ill and needing my help, I don't feel like I can leave her. Yet I crave sunshine, and not the liquid variety so common here. I wish I could talk my whole family into moving to the Southwest with me. I grew up there and I really miss it.

Since I have lived in so many places - 5 different states and countless cities in the USA, 2 years in another country in the Peace Corps and 1 year in South America, I guess you could say that I never really put down roots. I adapt really well to new situations, yet I never feel that I really fit in or completely belong to any one place. When I meet people who have lived in one place their whole lives, I am actually wistful for that experience. They complain that there is no privacy and everyone knows everyone's business, but I see it as an idyllic small town where everyone kind of feels like one big crazy extended family.

I can't go back and live in one place forever, yet I am bored to tears with the place I live now, and I feel I should stay to take care of my mom. I feel I should at least attempt to be a semi-normal human who buys a house and puts down roots and gets involved with the community, etc. Yet, I don't feel like this is really my community. I didn't choose it. I just came here after college because my parents moved here while I was still studying.