Uggghhh.....

Not again is what I want to say. Is there ever a time in your life when you're supposed to feel settled? I've been feeling very unsettled lately. Oh sure, Dear Reader, you can point to the fact that I'm living among storage bins and getting ready to move for the third time in a year - those things may in fact lead to a feeling of being unsettled. But it's more than that.

I believe it is the setting in of Cold Feet.

I find this hysterical as well as, well, unsettling. Hysterical because there's really no reason for it. Unsettled because there's really no reason for it.

See my state of confusion? I'm talking in circles!

Some people, though it seems the list is shrinking, don't know that this will be Marriage Number Two for me. While I'm not embarrassed now to say I screwed the pooch on the first one (though I felt like I was wearing a giant red "D" on my chest for a long time), it always surprises me when someone I didn't think knew comes to me and says, "So I hear you've already been married! What happened? How long were you together?" Groan. Eight years total. I had issues, he had issues, we couldn't work through said issues, relationship kaput. We're not bad people; we just didn't work well enough together. End of story. Pick self up, brush off dust, begin anew.

While I like to think that I have effectively dealt with my past, sometimes it bites me in the butt. Every so often I wonder if I'm going to screw this one up too. More than one person has asked me if I'm really ready to walk down the aisle again, knowing full well that it too could end badly. Every single time I say, "Yes," without hesitation. But the past couple of weeks, I think, Really?

The past couple of weeks have been very difficult. I've decided that two months is about all I can handle living without Wiley. After that, things seem to break down just a bit. I get testier with him. I suppose that it's during these times of separation that I really start questioning everything. We have a good, strong relationship. But it really does get tested when we don't get along and there's an ocean separating us. I know that communication is key, but sometimes I find it so difficult to really say what I need to say to make my feelings heard. When I'm mad, I tend to act out: fester, blow, retreat to cool off, come back to it with a calmer head. I had such a good handle on not festering and not blowing for the longest time, but lately I haven't been able to do as good a job.

I left Sarajevo early, too early, it seems. The whole city has come to life. Wiley tells me of all his outings and people who come to visit him. Last week it was some chick from IU who stayed with him all week - I trust him, no problems, though I got tired of hearing "we went to dinner, then went to lunch...". Not long before that, it was a friend from Austria, and next weekend, another friend from Austria. Part of me wants to say, What are you doing? Are you really working? Because all you tell me is when you go out. I'm working my ass off over here and he's working but not in the same way. Grr. The rational side of me knows that he's working, really, he is. The side of me that's really tired of being apart wants to scream, "Work the weekends so you can come home early!" Not an option, and I know this, but I still want!!! We work very well together most of the time. I just miss my man.

Add to this the fact that I'm not a goal-setter. I actually really don't like the word "goal" because I think it forces people to think so much about the future that they miss the present. However, part of me is nagging myself. Are you sure you're not just lazy? my inner self will say. You go home after work and stay in, hardly go out, don't open up a book though you read a lot of blogs. The goal I suppose I had before going to Sarajevo was to go back to school. I broke it down to be more manageable - researched schools, figured out how to pay for it, got letters of recommendation, wrote a personal statement, handed over my money and applied, even got accepted! Now it seems like something that's not going to be tangible for a few years, and now I'm also starting to question if it's what I really want to do. So now what??? Good at this, good at that....but you know, for all the things I'm good at (advice, violin, photography, the occasional blog-post or some other writing piece), I would trade them in to be great at just one thing. To have passion for just one thing that I could pour myself into, that's what I want. Maybe then I would be a little more settled. At 31, I'm supposed to be settled, damnit, not feel like I'm just graduating college and have my whole life ahead of me so I can make a few wrong turns. Where is my path?