And the green grass grows all around, all around...

My mind is racing from chasing you in my dreams at night; I don’t know how to slow it down. Slowly packing my belongings in a beaten up suitcase that has been more places than most people I know have dreamed of traveling. Again. Leaving behind a lover, friends and family. Waiting for him to scream wait, don’t leave at my door steep; with a boom box blaring some cheesy 80’s song. But, this is reality and he is Russian who is unaware of 1980’s music or boom boxes. What is it that I want from him? Do I want him to ask me to stay? But, if he did like others in the past I would do just the opposite, I would kiss him intensly and say goodbye my love. Maybe shed a tear or two and hop on the next plane and pray a cutie is assigned the seat next to mine.  If he did this I would not have the overwhelming feelings I have for him. Perhaps that is the real reason I like/love/adore him, because he is not all over me, crying and pledging “ohhh bella don’t leave me, don’t leave me”. He never was the romantic one, very matter of fact, very South Russian.

            I have thought about a head scan, maybe just maybe there is a disease called “the grass is greener on the other side” or “I want what I can’t have”. I am looking at the grass in my backyard, it looks pretty thirsty and brown to me, I think about the grass in Bari, when I think of it there is not much grass in that city. I am holding my cell phone contemplating my physicians number and if they can prescribe anything for “greener syndrome”  I have always wanted something that I couldn’t have, and in the end quite truthfully I have received it. When whatever I sought out was in my hands or in my heart it was never as good as expected. If a man is courting me, calling constantly, to available, to telling or emothional I am completely uninterested, but if he is distant I am all over that challenge like “white on pasta bianco” (white pasta in Italia).

I sat in my childhood room wondering and dreaming about Korea, and what I would experience, who I would meet, what I would learn. I sat in my small apartment in Korea, wondering about Southeast Asia, where I would go, who I would meet and what I would keep in my heart. Secrets only for my soul. I sat on an airport floor in Indonesia wondering about America, what would happen, if I would be happy and my future marriage. I sat in my apartment I shared with my ex fiancé dreaming and crying of being free, sun kissed Mediterranean beaches and of Europe. Travel and wonder lust ran through my veins. I sat on a plane to Sicily thinking of what the next year of my life would come to, why my relationship didnt work, and how this family I was going to be living with would change my life forever. In Sicily I wanted Roma (rome) I wanted to live there with everything I ever breathed. In Bari I sat talking to my girlfriends over coffee on a warm November day wanting to live in Spain, Turkey, Dubai and South America. It hit me hard like a smack in the face, like a shot of something strong; Am I searching for something? And if I am what the heck is it? Will I ever want to “stop” to settle?

I sat at the table in my best friend’s house in admiration of her perfect kitchen and beautiful new home, her husband texting her cell, her children tugging at her heels and puppy asleep on his soft pillow. My heart was swelling with pride, love and happiness for her. Perhaps it was the oyxtocin that is excreting it self through my body like wild fire when a woman is around children she loves. I going to blame it on the hormones, but for a second I wanted that too. Wanted a husband and children with their sticky fingers pulling at my pant legs and their soft voices echoing down the halls of my own home. When I searched deep into my own soul I knew that it wasn’t my time for these things, for me I am not “ready”. Perhaps my best friends who have these things look at me with enormous hearts and want to experience what it is like in my patent leather Italian boots.

Are we ever really satisfied? With whom we are, where we live and our lives? How is it measurable?  When exactly is that “ahhh haaa” moment in life where you have everything; your ideal figure, house, job, car and spouse. Whatever it is you are searching for or looking for in life, it is all there. Even if we reach goals do we ever stop pushing and wanting more? I feel especially Americans are this way, we always want more, more things, more material objects, more than our neighbors or friends. Once we have “many things” what do we do with it all? And is it only me who is suffering from grass is greener on the other side?

Expecting life as it comes and living in the moment is perhaps the best cure. I am going to make a cup of tea, plug in 80’s music and appreciate everything and everyone in my life…just enjoy my last sleep in American and truly “be” where ever I am in the world.