Icarus or Hestia?

I think it is fair to say that at some point in every persons life they will feel more like Icurus and that at another point they will feel more like Hestia. At this point in my life I feel more like Icarus.  Being in my hometown of Chico, is like being in a bubble.  It is a place of fimiliarity and comfort.  But no matter how happy and comfortable I am here I always have a yearning to be elsewhere.  I always dream of getting away.

In past experiences I have felt more like Hestia.  When I first left my hometown it was adventurous and exciting.  I could not wait to get to my new house by the beach and to start my new life in college.  But with as many people as I met and with as many good times as I had, I always felt that a little peice of me was missing.  There was an emptiness.  I missed home.

Thus, after only a year, I came home.  Sometimes I look back and wonder if it was the right choice.  Should I have not given in to those feelings of wanting to be back in my place of fimiliarity and comfort?  Should I have stayed there and not surrendered to the appeal of my "bubble" that is always waiting for me and calling me back to it.  It is a thought I think of now and again.  Would I have grown as a person if I had stayed despite my emptiness?  What if it was only a temporary state?  Where would my life have taken me if I had stayed there?

I ponder this thought more regularly after leaving my "bubble" and then again returning home for a second time.  After moving back from Santa Barbara and going to school in my hometown for two years the yearning to escape came back to me again. With junior college completed, I moved to Los Angeles to start an exciting life in the big city.  I actually felt very comfortable there and felt no emptiness as I had the first time I moved away.  The problem this time was different.  Among hating certain things about L.A. (like traffic), I was in love.  And he was back home in my "bubble".  Instead of listening to my gut feeling, I listened to him and I moved back home.

All I know is that I can't live in regret.  I can't live my life thinking "what if?"... I try to remember that everything happens for a reason and that sometimes there is no way to know what choice is the right one.  Sometimes you just act out of emotion and follow your heart, not your mind.  But one thing I learned from it all was to listen to your intuition and to not let others persuade you. 

Still, with regret wandering in and out of my mind, I am grateful for returning home for many reasons:  If I had not moved home again I would have never had such a wonderful college experience as I have had. I would have never met the friends that will someday be in my wedding.  I would never have discovered that the man that I was in love with was not the one for me.  And knowing me, the indecisive being that I am, I would have had regrets if I had stayed in Los Angeles.  Among other potential regrets, I probably would have always wondered if he was "the one I let get away."

So here I am at another stage in my life where the yearning to get out of my "bubble" is more prevalent than it ever has been before.  Here I am being Icarus once again.  They say that "the third time is a charm" and I believe it will be.  In my past two experiences moving away from home I have been influenced by someone close to me...to move with them to the beach...or to join them in the city.  This time I am going where I want to go and it is a decision that no one else has had an influence on. This time I am doing it all by myself and this time I will make it work.  I will not surrender if there should be feelings of loneliness or self doubt.  So to my favorite city that I know of, I go.  San Francisco awaits.

...and when the Icarus in me comes out again, Africa awaits.