What Makes Happy?

It's hard to believe that it's already mid-August. It seems like only yesterday when I was talking about how far away the winter was and how long I had until I had to make a decision about where I was going to lay my head. Maybe just for the winter, maybe for the rest of my life. Either way that time is now right around the bend as I have 59 (I counted) days until the end of the season.

The other day, I mentioned that we only have some 60 odd days until life at Signal Mountain Lodge in the center of the Grand Teton National Park will cease to exist. That we'll all be packing up and heading off to where we choose to winter and I was asked where it is that I'm going to go for those long months to which I responded, "Well. I'll go back to Michigan and get a job and an apartment." That answer wasn't satisfactory and I received a thumbs down and a raspberry (rude!), so I did the only logical thing and said, "Well. I'll go to North Carolina and live with my parents?" That answer also received the aforementioned thumbs down and another raspberry, which only made me flounder for what they had wanted me to say. The answer was the most unusual, unnerving, confusing, etc. answer I've ever gotten. "I want you to do what makes you happy. You can go and visit all those places but in the end I want to know that you're doing what makes you happy." Of course, I countered with the fact that I have no idea what makes me happy and that's a stupid thing to say to somebody who hasn't made a decision about anything for the last four years.

If I had been asked what made me happy then I would've naturally said, "Working and playing and living in the Tetons." I still love my Tetons and the family that I've made here, but I want something more. Something more out of life and maybe something more out of myself. And so I discussed with friends what it is that makes me happy. What would make me want to get out of bed with a hop in my step.

I want to be a journalist. I want to be a wedding planner. I want to write a book. I want to win an Oscar. I want to marry a marine and have a family. I want to be a hairstylist and I want to live my life without regrets.

It's been pointed out to me that maybe I should go for the one that's easily attainable, cosmetology school because the people that I talked to have heard that it's hard to win an Oscar. I say, can't I reach for the stars first?

I was lying in bed yesterday, listening to Kings Of Leon after watching a HollywoodTV video on youtube and realized, while Sex on Fire was playing a fantastic song btw, that I want that life. I said in my earlier post that we're all adults with occupational ADD, that I couldn't see myself living in one place for 8 years and I've always felt that I was born in the wrong era. What better job to have than one where I could travel, become a different person in a different time?

That would make me happy.