8 more years.....tick, tock. tick, tock.

I am 22 as of 46 minutes ago. Feels a lot like 21. But older, somehow :) I mean, 22 is the age where you begin to feel like you've made that leap into adulthood. 21 is like, oh now you are legal to drink! Now you can get into clubs and bars (legally)! A whole new world opens up when you turn 21.

When you turn 22, it's like, okay, I am officially in my twenties. It's weird, knowing that I only have 8 more years of being in this age period. There are so many things that I want to accomplish in my twenties. I've done a bit already: graduated college, backpacked Asia alone, learned to blow glass and spin poi, won a journalism fellowship, moved (in the process of) to Chicago, lived in a co-op. I still plan to: backpack Latin America, Europe, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and the rest of Asia. Essentially, I plan to visit every continent in the world before I am 30. I want to have published a book, have my own gallery showing of my glass, my own carbon-neutral glass studio, hippie-tripped it across the US in a vegoil school bus, lived in the desert, San Francisco, New York and overseas somewhere for 1 year. I want to be on the road for 6 months or more straight. I would say I want to live in Portland for a while, but I think that the Northwest may be where I wish to buy a home one day, and Oregon seems like a pretty good place to live. Although, it might be smarter to buy a home in Vancouver because of tax reasons. Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. Back to my goals for my twenties. If I get this tech support job here in Chicago, I will work at it for 2 years. Save up 20,000. Pay off my student loans, and have fun living in the city. Then, after I feel like I need to escape the country again (not that I don't feel that way now, I just can't afford it!), I will go....somewhere. Anywhere. I'm buying a one way ticket to somewhere that's not here. And I will keep going for a year, I hope. I will use 10,000. Use the remaining funds to set up a glass studio somewhere upon my return. After being in one place for a while, maybe I'll do a cross-country trip before I move again. Maybe I should live in New York for a while then trip it to Portland.

Oh the possibilities. I love being young and able and free to do what I please. I love that I desire experience, to know the unknown, to see everything I can. I wonder if it is an unconscious knowledge of my numbered days. I feel like I have to experience everything I can, because you never know when you won't be able to any longer. I might get sick, have a baby, fall in love, die. I do hope that I fall in love with someone with some of the same goals, at least the traveling ones, because I'm sick of falling for someone that I'm going to end up leaving because I have my own agenda. A baby would throw a big, fat kink into all my plans. One day I would like to have a child. Maybe even two. A partner would be great, but I really want a child to impart my knowledge upon. I would love to teach my child how to spin fire and blow glass from an early age. I would love to see my child grow up understanding what global community means. One day...

For now, I will enjoy being 22 and young and free of responsibilities and commitments. For now, the most pressing thing on my mind is: What to do for my birthday????????