Sunday, October 23, 2011

The Best of Both Worlds

Story of my life: I love routine. Until I'm bored. Then I love excitement. until I'm overwhelmed. then I love routine.

I am a very complex person. I love extremes.

I am never – most of the times – satisfied. It’s like my feet are always itching to go places, to achieve new things, to try something different, to step away from the norm. I always want more – because I know what it’s like to search for something more.

But then there’s also a part of me that can never leave my comfort zone. One that’s happy living what I’ve always thought I‘ve always wanted – which is a normal life, doing normal everyday things with the people I love.

One thing I do know is that all my life, I like living one day at a time. And that I am never satisfied. And I always want more.

Three years ago, my days consisted of the atypical “breakfast in Europe-lunch in the Middle East-dinner at Africa-weekends in Manila”.  I was paid to travel, to wake up to a different city every day, to look good and be glamorous, to stay in the most luxurious hotels, to go to places other people only dream about. I get to shop and to party anywhere I wanted to – it was the job a million girls would die for. But then, I was never satisfied. There were always days that I would cry myself to sleep. There were days I would rather trade places and give up Paris or Rome or Mauritius. A part of me always longed for home, for normalcy. I wanted a normal 8-5 desk job, being home on weekends, doing housework, spending time with my family.

These days, that’s what my life consists of. It was what I always wanted.

But these days, I find myself on the other side, looking in to what my life used to be and wishing I was there instead. I miss flying but it is the travelling that I really miss the most. I want to once again wake up trying to remember where I was, what day it is or what time zone I am in. I miss the craziness that comes with the job: waking up in the middle of the night to go somewhere else only to arrive in a new destination a few hours later and everything will be different, being gone for days at a time, an overused suitcase that is always packed with clothes for summer, autumn,spring or winter - just because you never know where you’ll be sent to next.

Don’t get me wrong. I am happy where I am now. I have never been happier but perhaps it is human nature to want something you don’t have. And for someone like me, someone who has dreams so big and wings that just keep on wishing to fly higher and a longing to search for something more, something better  - maybe I just will never be satisfied. Or maybe I just don’t know what I want – yet.

I have always questioned why I can never have the best of both worlds.

But who knows? Maybe one day I will.