The future is becoming clearer. The more I think, and listen, the more clear everything is. I have a strong suspicion within the next couple of weeks everything will be much closer to decided.

My plan at this point, which is pretty rapidly unfolding is to leave for SE Asia in mid January. There are still a lot of things that need to be sorted, but I’m pretty sure my path forward is being cleared and everything is going to work out. The biggest concern I have at this point is that the finances won’t fall into place. Ideally I’d like to just live and not work. Spend time writing and exploring – finding myself and learning about a new culture. A new way of life. Finding a new way to view the world. Finding my voice. Within the coming week I expect to hear that I have been let go from my job. My next step is going to be getting a hold of my 401k and rolling it over to my credit union. I’m hoping to be able to tap into some of that money without paying the penalties or fees. This part might get tricky and it’s possible I’m going to end up with much, much less than I’d hoped, but I’m pretty sure at least a small portion should be accessible based on the amount of medical bills I’ve had this year. Worst case scenario I’ll have to find a job teaching English. On a positive note I think I’d like working with kids, but this wouldn’t be a perfect situation. I’ve been doing a lot of soul-searching lately and this is the path that feels right to me. I suppose things could always change, but from this point forward I’m working towards leaving here in mid January and am currently working to get everything in order to make that happen.

I also finally created an arts and crafts project I’ve been meaning to do for a while. Ever since I weaned myself off all the psychotropic medication I’ve wanted to do something with the pills I had left. I got the idea of gluing them to some type of container and then filling it with candy and giving it to my psychiatrist – you know, because psychiatrists hand out pills like they’re candy. I finally finished it. Unfortunately I realized I wasn’t going to have enough lithium to do it all so I had to use primarily cheap ibuprofen I bought at Costco. I did get to work in some of my lithium so that was good. I hope she likes it!