Harper’s Globe

Looking in the past is always rough because you have the benefit of hindsight. Oh, I should or shouldn’t have done that, I wish I had taken this or that opportunity, etc.  And sometimes I get sad about the things I didn’t do, or wasn’t offered.  But the thing is, the life I lead is the life I led.  All my choices, good or bad, brought me here.  And I’d like to think that had I wanted to do something or go somewhere, I would have.

But I look back and realize I’ve never been anywhere, and I haven’t really done anything.  Home and school and here, that’s it.  My family never traveled, and I guess when I had the chance to, I chose not to.  I had friends who went on weekend trips together, who went on post-high school trips to Europe.  Invitations were extended to me, but I always turned them down.

See, I didn’t want to go somewhere and then come back; I just wanted to go, to get out of Pleasant Prairie.  I wanted to make something of my life beyond my small town.  So I worked, while everyone else traveled.  And then when I finally left for school, when I thought I could finally say yes to all those fun invitations, I found myself sitting in my room on the weekends doing homework, blogging, and reading.  What does that mean?  Am I scared to venture out into the world, and work is just my excuse?  Or am I a workaholic who doesn’t know how to have fun?

Really, it doesn’t matter which one is the right answer, because no matter what, it has to change. I need to change.  And, like: now.

From what I see from the office windows, Harper’s Island is too beautiful to ignore. I’m a girl from the plains; this is all unbelievable to me.  I’ve never lived on an Island before.  Or a place with such natural beauty.  When the morning fog lifts, and I look out over the ocean, it stuns me into silence.  That’s when I start thinking that all this time spent with my head down, eyes on the page, has been a complete mistake.

For the first time in my life, I wanna start looking around.

So now I have the motivation to stop working and start exploring, I just need to know where to start. I don’t know… can I hire someone for this?  Are their tour guides in the off-season?  Will I look like a complete dork being lead around town by a guy in a tour guide vest and knee high socks?  But really, will this make me any more of a dork than I already am? (Don’t answer that last one, it’s rhetorical. Obviously.)