money and a shotgun

as i mentioned, i just bought airfare to Indonesia for January. i felt a little sad right after i purchased. i know that's partly menstrual, partly financial, and partly existential.

Financial: now that i've got a uni gig, i've got to strike out on my own and actually go through the Korean machinations to rent my own apartment. the independence of that is nice because it is more Real Life, but this means i will have about ONE dime left over in March, after i pay for key money and 1st month's rent. *sigh*
considering that made me wonder a little bit about MY life. out here in Korea.

a huge part of coming out to the Motherland was to pay off my student loans. but here i am, at the end of year 2, and i'm still 46K in debt. i've probably sent home about 10K this past year, but somehow none of that got applied to my loans.
i needed to help my parents do *this*, help my unemployed brother pay for *that*, deal with a *random bill*, pay for that unexpected *wedding gift*, take multi-destination flights to the States... yikes! it never ended.

i'm not complaining--i don't have any Real fiduciary problems--i know i'm wealthy as hell compared to the rest of the people in the world. i just HATE money. whenever i take pause and think about it, the relentlessness of the Rat Race depresses the hell out of me. over 7 years of paying down 50K of student loans and i've hardly made a dent.

i just want to be DONE so that i have the option of randomly taking a trip to... let's say... Kenya.
i can see myself randomly falling in love with the people, the community, the country--and then decide to eschew everything else: quit my job, leave behind my possessions--(bequeathed to 'my Family'), and live and serve the Kenyan people in a little mud hut by the river. i could work with my hands and carry water and contract tropical diseases and eat tropical fruit and be sunburnt all the time. eventually, i could curse my festering Kenyan sores and mosquito bites while musing about how little i understood about the romances of living in Africa. meanwhile, i could try to see if God sounds the same out there as He does in the other places i've been.
[by the way, by my experience, though He IS exactly the same, He somehow sounds/feels different in different places around the world. i have a feeling that *that's* because i don't really know Him that well.]

i guess that all bleeds into the Existential side of my little moment of sadness.
in the past 9 months, i've been to: Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Korea, the US, and Japan. while i was doing the research to travel Indonesia, i mostly felt a bubbling excitement about the amazing sights and culture and people i would soon encounter.
but, during those quiet, exhausted, alone-moments, i began feeling a bit dizzy at the thought of all of the countries i've visited and all of the countries i wanted to see. the strength just got sucked out of my muscles as i considered how there never feels like there is enough time. how there are just *too many people*, too many stories, too many needs... there is just TOO MUCH of everything but also TOO LITTLE of everything.

and then, i began to consider: what's the point? after all of that complaining about the Rat Race, haven't i simply created my own form and imposed it onto myself?

on another, related thread: i think i should spend some time considering *why* exactly i don't really like traveling with others. everyone always talks about how traveling with friends is so much fun and et cetera--but i don't know. everytime i've traveled with people for more than a few days: i spend too much money, i get up too late, and i don't end up doing the things that i reallyREALLY want to do. at the end of the day, i feel exhausted because i feel like i've been entertaining the whole time.
i guess i'm a bit of a people pleaser/accomodater--which makes *me* a pretty good travel partner--but i don't know how much pleasure i derive from that experience. (i'm such an arrogant brute, huh?)
sometimes i just want to be completely alone and read a book or write in my journal or get lost in lonely thoughts while people-watching. when traveling, i just hate feeling pressure to do anything but exactly what i want to do. maybe i need to just be honest w/ my fellow travelers when i need alone time, huh?
(but i would argue that's it's hard to find someone secure enough about their personhood to not take the "i need some alone time" shrug personally.)

but again, i find it a little troubling that for most of my hobbies (and especially for my favorite hobby) that i have such a fucking selfish attitude about my pleasures. MINE!

i feel almost certain that inevitably i *do* belong in a pair, but as i thought about how i like to fly solo for my greatest indulgence in life, i felt a little frightened/saddened by myself.
will i one day take over my parents' acres of land in the backcountry of Arizona, Alone? will i wear my dad's old plaid shirts and raise goats and chop wood for the winter heat? will i have a dozen dogs that i all name "George" and deliriously shoot rounds into that painted sky, just so i can feel something?
damnit. that kinda sounds like fun.