Just thinking aloud...

For a while I've been stuck at this crossroad debating on staying where I am, a place that I have grown to to love and provides me with amazing freedom but is so distant from so many of my loved ones, or to go back, returning to a less exciting place but being surrounded again by so many family and friends. Yes, I've been debating on permanently staying to live here in New Zealand. The mountains, the ocean, the culture, the people, and the adventure of being free is so intoxicating to me that I hate the thought of leaving this country. Yet the thought of going months or years without seeing family and friends makes me ache.

I've been busy with finals and projects and so I haven't really been able to deliberate upon a decision and instead have been stuck in limbo. Today, I finally had time to get away from distractions and commitments. I wandered down to the waterfront leaving my books and camera behind and turning my phone on silent I just sat there staring at the ripples in the water for an hour. I wasn't really thinking about anything just staring and observing whatever caught my eye. Until I thought, yes I could live here and be fully content for the rest of my life and for the first time in my life even thought about starting a family there, which for me is very out of character considering I'm probably the one percent of girls that has never planned her own wedding, and as I sat there thinking how amazing it would be to live here permanently a flash of yellow caught my eye.  Not more then a foot away from me was a gold finch, one of my favorite birds and the first one I've spotted while in New Zealand, this little fellow kept disappearing and reappearing beside me till I realized it was building a nest in the rocks. I couldn't help but smile to myself thinking that this little bird was a sign telling me to stay and make this place my home. Here, besides issues with my credit card, I have had no stress. No family issues to deal with. No friends that I have to check on every morning to make sure they are still alive. No friends relying on me to help ease their pain as I end up tearing my own wounds back open. Here my friends love to live simply with no worries and no complaints.  Just like this country, I am carefree while I am here and have no obligations to others. And it is freeing. Not to mention the greater opportunity to get an amazing job at WETA Digital. But to stay would mean I would be missing out on so much. Family parties and celebrations. Memories with my friends. And maybe even a chance at love. Do I give up my freedom for stressful times with people I love? Will I still be me at the end of the day if I were to give them up? Indecisiveness has always been my weakness but it saddens me that I would even have to debate such a thing because although going to New Zealand was the first thing I actually did for myself deep down I know the needs of my friends and family will always outweigh my own. As I came to that conclusion the flinch flew off and this time it didn't return. It had toyed with the idea of making a nest in those rocks but in the end decided to continue searching, or perhaps it just wasn't ready to make a nest quite yet it is winter here after all, and once again I smiled to myself. I got up from the waterfront and started walking back toward my flat. I turned my back on the enticing sunset and daydreams of living here. I now know that I am not ready yet. Not ready to have already picked out a final destination. Not ready to be tied to a single location. And not ready to permanently be away from my friends and family back home. Just like what I am about to do in a month, I headed home. Yes, the opportunities I have here are tempting but the opportunities I have back in The States are unfathomable and unpredictable. I almost started planning out my life, and that is not me. I am the type of person that goes through life waiting for the unexpected to throw me into a new chapter and although this time I have reluctantly come to the end I know I am able to look back on it at any time, and who knows maybe one day I will return to it. Till the end of my days I wish for nothing but an unwritten life. Where will I be in five years? I can honestly answer that in five years I can see myself anywhere and everywhere as long as I am still able to wake up and love both myself and the people I have surrounded myself with. I am going home and am getting more and more excited to be reunited with my loved ones. I only hope they want me back.