It became real to me when I cancelled my gym membership on last Friday night.

That cancellation was the first tangible action taken towards a goal that originally popped into my awareness as a wild hair and has been steadily manifesting within me, rising like warm sourdough bread, for the past few months. I’m not quite golden brown, but it smells *really* good and I feel soft and gooey. Can you smell me?

I’m taking a hiatus from the traditional working world.

I’m temporarily leaving the twin cities.

I’m traveling for a year…a year of wonders.

I’m still not quite sure how to articulate this when I speak about it aloud. (Speaking it aloud is scary enough.) The energy around this is like beginning a quest. So I can’t really claim complete dissatisfaction with work. Although, yes, work factors into this equation. And I’m not running from something bad because life here in my lovely home, my amazing friends, my awesome warrior brothers…it’s all good. It’s ridiculously good.

In fact, I’ve had so many Maslow hierarchy of needs fulfilled that I’m bumping against the ceiling of the next tier, like a fresh helium balloon (mint green). Quiet bumping, bounce, bounce, bump.

But damn…a quest sounds so pretentious.

It is a quest…but for some inner pieces that I think are important to my next stage of who I want to be. I am creating that man - from the inside out - and now it’s time to change some external world qualities. None of this is sudden…it’s been growing within me since my New Warrior Training Adventure in May 2003.

Yes, I have my warrior work to blame for this upcoming adventure. I used to be very SAFETY focused. Make money, have a little fun, but generally cautious and careful on a…hmmm…what’s the word…life-planning scale. I might be impetuous and goofy about purchasing certain books or a road trip, but I am certainly not the type to live in Italy for 3 months. Or someone who could work on a cantaloupe farm for three months. Or skip Christmas with my immediate family to do volunteer work.

Well, except for the fact that I now am that man.

I have been able to look at how the ’safe route’ has served me well. And how lately, it has hindered my growth to someone who takes risks and embraces the challenges life presents. I am grateful for the path I have been on for it helped me survive and thrive for a long while in my life. One of the tangible results is that I created a lovely home and life for myself in Minneapolis. And now…the next tier of development asks me, ‘Can you create that home within yourself - and not rely on the external world to validate that?’

Yow.

In my book club, we read Year of Wonders a few years ago. It was a fascinating book about a year in a small English village during a 17th century plague. Cheerful tale? No, not quite. Decaying limbs, coughing, then death sprinkled over everything like chocolate jimmies over a cupcake. And a little bit of hope. Maybe it’s the part of me that likes dark humor…but somehow this fits - it’s the only thing that fits - my mind when I think about what’s to come. A year of wonders. Will this be plague-like? Nah. But I really don’t know what to expect or where these ideas will lead me.

Where am I going this next year?

Will it last for a full year?

Am I selling my house?

When does it begin - late May as I hope…or later?

Who would feed my cat if I owned one?

Let’s begin.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 17th, 2007 at 5:39 pm and is filed under Warrior. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.