Finders keepers?

What seems like a million years ago, but was really more like a week, I was in Copenhagen. I was sitting by bodies of water, reading and sipping mochas between long strolls in some of the most livable neighborhoods imaginable. I was just doing whatever I wanted to do...living life on my own time. Only vacations aren't life. They're a whirlwind romance with a potential life where everything is new and fresh and exciting. In short: it's false. Like all romances though, it's an intoxicating falseness. If not resisting is part of the fun, I had an amazing time.

Keeping consistent with myself, though, I knew even as I was sampling the cafes and tucked away boutiques that while it would be fun to live in Copenhagen (and I would seriously jump at the chance) I couldn't possibly do it for more than a couple of years. It's not that the romance would wear off - there was some substance to my love of the place (clean, diverse, amazing mass transit, bicycle and pedestrian friendly, loads of young - or whatever I am now - professionals living healthy lifestyles, water everywhere) - but there's an acknowledgement that I need to be challenged and pushed and, in many ways, made uncomfortable. I like to grow and I need those things to do so. With that in mind, I knew that Copenhagen could never be my long-term home. The full realization that I was spending a life running from comfort was a bit saddening, though it helped explain some random life choices. By the end I really envied the couples having quiet dinners and wine with friends. Not because they had it and I didn't, but because it filled them in a way it never would fill me. I know I can't live the simple life, but like vacation spots, it was fun to romanticize that I could and that fullness was something I could find - it's why I used to eat so much...a search for fullness of any kind.

I returned to a rather easy adjustment - an evening and day in Bulgaria's capital city with my friend Megan where we stayed up and swapped tales until we just couldn't say one more syllable and then woke up to go to coffee and repeat. Sometime between our chats and laughs and my return to my apartment (which no longer held the sense of home it had when I left) I caught a cold that turned into bronchitis. In addition to being one of the worst welcome home gifts I could have imagined, it cancelled my trip to Turkey and helped smack me against the Bulgarian quasi-reality wall with astonishing speed. Suddenly my movements were restricted and I felt like hell. Everywhere I went with my sneezing and coughing I was looked at like a walking virus. All the feelings of imprisonment and discontent I left behind were somehow transformed with the volume turned to "head rattling". Going from Copenhagen to this was simply whiplash.

So, I am here in my apartment just before dusk on a night begging for a long stroll, because I can't breath so well and I can't be away from a pot of tea for more than about 30 minutes. I sit here and not in Istanbul with friends because the bus ride was just too long as was the risk of additional attackers on my weak immune system. I suddenly feel just that: weak. And alone. Like the world is too much for me, and too little. Like I need to figure out how to accept a life of quiet dinners and find contentment in cafes. I feel like a duck, one being prepared for the dinner table but still dreaming of southern migration. I just want to be someplace and be happy that I'm there - to have it be real and without qualifiers - even if it's only for a little while. I know my fullness doesn't last, I just want to be big enough to find it...and still dream of being small enough to keep it.