Jet-Settled

I was walking to Darling Coffee today, which has more or less become my office (have you TRIED the focaccia?) and I realized I haven't blogged in a while.

I've been thinking about what it means to be settled.  When I thought about my trajectory this fall, I realized I would hardly be in New York straight without traveling.  That threatened me initially because I thought that such a schedule would prevent me from settling in.  But I think I was mistaken. I have settled into New York again, in the ways that I park at this coffee shop, walk half a mile through my neighborhood to window shop and get Burger King, run with my hair down through the bustling canvas that is midtown and share the city existence with my friends.  New York is mine as it always was and in many ways it's traveling that makes me realize that even more.

As many of you know, I work as a hedge fund manager for True Contrarian.  I also run my own fashion business, AK Kerani.  Both of these things do not require going into a formal office and it's up to me to determine my work schedule, as long as I'm completing a large amount of tasks.  The way I see it, I have both flexibility and security - two things that normally do not go together.  My lifestyle is begging me to travel and take advantage of this miracle combination.  It's begging me to uproot myself and go on adventures because I can.  I work from my phone or from my laptop.  As long as my destinations of choice have wifi and a vibrant place to park, I can be anywhere and I should be anywhere.

I told myself recently that my 20s should be messy.  Perhaps they should be, but not in the way I was thinking.  I want to be in love.  I want to have a plan and concrete goals for which I can carefully save up.  I guess what messy means now is more of an attitude.  I can be all over the place, contrarian and confident in decisions that seem shaky without answering to anyone.  I don't have to apologize for the seemingly reckless investments I make.  I can jet set the world and be proud of it.  Because somehow, by following the rocky threads of my life and diving into their contours no matter where they come from, I have become someone of whom I am proud.  Somehow, though to others I might look like I'm flailing, I have it together.  I can't apologize for the way I live my life because all it has brought me is greatness and I don't want that to change.

If "settled" means moving around causing a riot, than that's what it means to me.  To me, "settled" means writing a story, a story that's meaningful.  I may not be completely settled in any one place.  Maybe I never fully will be.  But I am settled within myself and that inner balance is something that can travel with me wherever I go.