Thank you, Matt. Such wise words.

I try to stay present and call out the beauty around me. To see the lessons that present themselves when I’m feeling stuck. In moments of enlightenment, I’m able to let go and feel that I’m being taken care of, wherever I am, as long as I’m surrendering.

I feel that the urge to leave comes from 3 things:

1. my biological clock that’s ticking and fears that I may never find a partner in this small town. I think this is what tugs at me the most.

2. my head telling me that there’s much to learn from new environments — about myself and the world.

3. a feeling of lack. That I’m not in control and therefore I don’t have what I want or need.

I really don’t know how to learn this lesson and stop seeking. I feel like I’ve been dealing with this for 20 years, and it never seems to get easier. My only guess for why I feel this way is that in looking back at times when I went off seeking, I found great strength in myself and learned a lot from the experience. I guess I see those things as great life experiences, so why would I want to deny them?

Does this make any sense?

Is the lesson to sit with my feelings of needing to seek? To be present with the feelings that I believe are causing me to want to be elsewhere?

Matt,

I have done some thinking about my thoughts on where I want to go and how that feels more right for me at the time. It’s interesting because I left Chicago wanting to find a more peaceful environment. I ended up regretting that move terribly soon after leaving. When I went back, I went back with an openness that I never had for the place. I opened myself to seeing everything as it is and found myself completely surrounded by beauty, whether it be in the parks or in the somewhat grungy and rundown ‘hood where I stayed with my friend while visiting. I saw all the opportunities that I didn’t open myself to when I previously lived there. I feel I was able to appreciate it for what it was, instead of what I wanted it to be, but only because I was able to live somewhere later that didn’t nurture my soul AT ALL. I feel my heart truly wants to be in the midwest (specifically in the country of Minnesota), so going back there would help me to get closer to that dream.

There’s so much beauty where I am now, and I can definitely open up to it all, minus the boredom of not having friends and being in a place that I know like the back of my hand.

I also can kind of see that my desire to return to Chicago may have something to do with wanting to escape the grieving the end of the relationship that I was in. While I was there visiting, I could fill my heart with all the things that made me feel fulfilled, yet I still was in mourning. While here, without anything to make me feel fulfilled, my mourning is quickly turning to self-hate and disappointment. I wonder how fulfilled I can feel with just living of life of constant practice.