Toto, I Think We're Back in Kansas

I haven't spent this much time at home since I was on summer break from college. Essentially this is what this is---summer break from work, right? Maybe. As much as I love my family, I spend a great deal of effort trying to be independent from them. No one wants to be like their mothers or be reminded of all the restrictions that youth once imposed before you were making your own money.  Aside from New York City being the best place for design in the US, this was the mindset that made me move away from home.

However, I did make the decision to stop working. I needed to reassess what I wanted in life; whether it was to trudge on as a slave to design for the sake of livelihood or locate my personal goals. Where was I headed and would time slip through my fingers before I had a chance to figure it out? Was New York City really the best place for me or was it a default location other than home?

Well, after 5 months of producing window displays and retail merchandising; 3 months of moonlighting as a corporate caterer; and another 5 months of wandering and mentoring youth in China, I can confidently say that life is fundamentally the same everywhere. It is the person that affects the experience. No mater where you are or what you're doing--perception or mindset really is everything. The concept seems simple now as I write it, but the grass is not greener on the other side or will it magically be greener in the future.  It is the person that waters that grass to make it green.  I don't mean to turn this post in to a philosophy debate, but I do believe we generate our own happiness and that appreciating the present saves you a lot of anguish about the past or anxiety about the future.  Now is all we have.

And so now I am home. And so now while I try not to obsess and agonize over the future of my career and my life, I am grateful to be with my family who are the foundation for everything I am. I am grateful to observe the slight childhood quirks of my two nephews despite the fact they wake me up at 7am everyday pretending to be marauding pirates.  I am grateful for home-cooked meals despite the fact that my mother tends to be an eccentric, experimental cook; and for a roof over my head even though my parents are pack rats and I can never find anything among the piles of clutter.  Finally, I am grateful to live in the DC area and hopefully will unravel a little about this city as an adult that I did not see as a child.