she is most definitely planning a disappearing act, vol I

I talked with my mom forever tonight, both of us drinking red wine on the phone in different cities. I told her about how I canceled valentines and made my boyfriend smoke a joint with me last summer. She told stories about Cuba, I told her about things that happened in the last six months... I forget that my letters home at the most interesting points were along the lines of "not dead / bad connection / love you"

Movies at night, waiting for the cold to break, my roommate stocks things like Jane Austen movies and the rental place is miles away. I can see into an office from my apartment window, empty at night except for the sometimes janitor. Being alone in the apartment is both peaceful and strange, I haven't been alone anywhere for a year. More than anything, right now, I'm bored. It's too cold to walk around outside and I have a limited number of books in my apartment as I moved here with two suitcases and a humidifier.

I'm making my own Costa Rica travel guide and putting my life in order. Conversational Spanish. Financing, figuring out how to live for nothing when I get home, making sure my life continues to function in my absence, at least until I decide it needs to stop. The next step, June 2009, is admittedly little anxiety inducing. My goal is Brazil and back to SA for Billabong 2009, but it depends on more variables than I can actually control. Then, Labor Day in America - a reunion years in the making - marks the cut-off point where I have to make some choices about whether or not I'm going to do this career thing and how.

Today I briefly thought about what I would be doing with my life if I hadn't stumbled into what I'm doing right now and figured out that I was really good at it. The funny thing is, while I always had it in my head that I could drop out of school at any moment and walk away from it, now I'm wondering if I'll have the guts to challenge the norm and do it my way. And I keep asking if doing it my way is equivalent to dropping out of life, which I'm not sure I'm comfortable with. The conversation in my head goes like this:

"Why can't you walk away from it?"
"I need some income to live and I did get the education."
"Money doesn't make you happy, it makes some people happy, but not you."
"I'm worried if I leave I'll be blacklisted."
"Blacklisted from what? Look around you. Look at who would be making that call."
"It just feels like the point of no return, I don't want to be one of those stories that people tell about 'the smartest kid in the class'..."
"Maybe there's a reason the smart kids jump ship."
"What if I never do it and I never know what could have been?"
"You already do, my dear, you already do."