Trying this again...

Taking a break from Boston this weekend by being in Florida, which I think is really good for me. Not only is it nice to experience temperatures greater than 30 degrees, but the past couple weeks have been incredibly confusing and I really felt like I just needed to get on a plane and have self reflection time away from my home. Being in Florida almost facilitates that in a way because being with my dad reminds me of a lot of things from my past since the house here is full of random high school and childhood memories and memorabilia that have been transplanted from Virginia. I have started bringing my viola here too and practicing after dinner was so oddly comforting for me tonight - a routine I used to have every day from ages 11 to 18.

It's interesting looking back on my last post which I really only wrote about a month and a half ago, because I felt like I had so much clarity then, and now things have gotten confusing awfully fast. The past couple weeks have been extremely revealing in just how difficult it is going to be for me in my life and my future to balance a relationship with my own needs, my friends, and of course my career. My desire to travel and shift cities every couple of years while I can is completely at odds with his desire to stay in just one city. Compromise is proving exceedingly difficult, and I have found myself questioning this more often in the past couple weeks than I perhaps ever have. I am trying to follow my gut, instead of trying to balance my head and my heart, since those take me in completely different directions.

I feel like I am at a crossroads, both with my career and with my relationship. There are any number of permutations this situation could take, and these past couple weeks have been an emotional roller coaster as I've attempted to navigate my feelings and balance them with distractions I know are nothing but bad for me. Thinking about the types of distractions I gravitate to also makes me worried about reversion to the type of person I was in college - so outwardly self confident, academically sound, and perfectly social, but deeply insecure when it came to guys. I am not sure that part of me has gone away; it may just be buried deeper these days, and it's really unnerving when it resurfaces, causing me to be giggly and buoyant one moment and so unbelievably frustrated and upset the next. I know that part of life is learning to weather these emotions so my resolve going back to Boston is to let the chips fall where they may and not try to force anything one way or the other.

I think that perhaps moving to Australia is the only way to gain clarity on this situation, and that's why I've set things in motion for that type of move about 10 months from now. I think that by doing so, though, I am also finally coming to terms with the fact that this one move by no means solves some of these greater issues that are causing me to toss and turn at night more than usual these days. A permanent place to settle down? The need to settle down at all? Timing of marriage/kids? Deciding right now to be with one person for the rest of your life, or wanting to make sure it's right by having other experiences first? Balancing your career with someone else's? All seem like entirely unanswerable questions.

So I will just let time run its course and see what happens. In the meantime, I resolve to try to go back to work with a clear head on Monday for my new case and not get distracted by things completely out of my control and realm of understanding.