Hi there :)

I'm writing this from a little apartment in Tirana, Albania. The first place I've stayed with my parents on this trip and had my own room (the first time I've had my own room in a bit over a month). I usually live alone, so I've been a little extra tired just from sharing rooms and sleeping on sofas in living rooms. There's really nothing to do about it other than to be excited to get back to my own apartment soon. I'm going to go draw myself a bath and soak until I turn into a prune.

This trip is the longest period of time I've ever been continually on the go. I flew to Berlin on the 29th or 30th of August, I don't quite remember which day, then took the train to Lübeck, where I lived with an aunt in high school, then flew to Split and Dubrovnik in Croatia, then to Vienna, and then, finally, here to Tirana. I love to travel and see people, places, and things, but deep in my core I'm a bit of a homebody and I'm tired. 

This past week I've been on a bicycle trip with my parents and other people in their 50s and 60s and maybe even 70s. It was a mix of people on e-bikes and regular bikes. Because I'm not a cyclist in the slightest (unless you call riding my bike to a friend's house cycling), I rode an e-bike. I did do a good job of keeping it turned off or turned to the lowest setting. There was one woman on the trip I didn't like. On the first day I met her, she nearly yelled at the poor kid working the front desk at the hotel we were at for that night because he told her there was only one key per room and that her roommate had already taken it. She went on to do other things like talk over me at lunch to say the exact same piece of information I was already saying, just louder and faster so she would get the credit for knowing it. I think she views conversations as an opportunity to show that she knows a lot of information rather than an opportunity to connect with other people, because she didn't ask anybody even a single question the entire week. I'm glad I'm not like that and I'm glad nobody else on the trip was like that, other than her.

I'm at a bit of a crossroads in my life. But I suppose we're always at a crossroads. I remember when I was fifteen or sixteen and my high school boyfriend (well, 8th through 10th grade boyfriend) and I both weren't sure how to break up with one another and I think both kept putting it off and then one day we went for a walk at lunchtime and he said "so I think at this point we can either keep dating or we can break up. What do you think?" and I always thought that was odd because that's every point in a relationship, but I didn't tell him that. I told him I thought we should probably do the latter and he looked relieved and then he wasn't my boyfriend anymore. 

But anyway. I'm at a crossroads because I'm not entirely sure I'm actually interested in the career I've set myself up for and I'm not sure where I want to live and I'm faced with a big decision regarding both of those things and I don't even know what to base it on. I've been at this crossroads since Friday the 13th (January, not October), when I was laid off. How's a girl supposed to know who she is and what she wants, anyway? I put off making the decision by saying I wanted to move to Germany and by finding work as a gardener and by planning this big long trip and by going to Utah for a month to dogsit, but the decision still needs to be made eventually. Oh well. I'm not going to think about it until I'm done with my trip and back at my apartment. 

I think I'm going to get a pixie cut. I had one for a bit in high school and I think I'd like to have one again now. I was growing my hair out for the longest time, but then I got into the habit of the early morning nudie swim with a group of friends, more on that later probably, and I think the saltwater was bad for my hair because I didn't always do a good job of rinsing it out and I got more and more split ends and I decided eventually that I had to part with it. I think it's been long enough that the hair that's on my head right now hasn't ever been dyed. I used to dye my hair all sorts of colors. And then, for a few years, I was dying it a darker shade of brown every fall until one year when I accidentally dyed it black and gave up dyeing my hair once and for all, telling myself it was so I could go blonde eventually. But I don't really think I'd look good as a blonde.