Please Take Me Away From Here

I've lived within a few square miles my whole life. I've never left for more than a few weeks. Some of the places I shop at, eat, and recreate are places I've shopped at, eaten, and recreated since I was a toddler. Most of the people I associate with have also lived within the same few square miles all their life and have been shopping at, eating, and recreating at the same places I have for as long as I have or longer.

This usually doesn't bother me. I've never wanted to live anywhere but here. But this week, I have been pondering what will become of me if I never get married and have a family. Would I stay here? Would I be happy here alone? If I leave in the near future, will that increase my chances of finding what I'm looking for?

Yesterday, I took these thoughts with me to a tub of my favorite ice cream, Campfire S'mores by Dreyer. I have never had my own tub of ice cream all to myself, so it is with great delight that I have been eating it straight out of the container. I have done this while reading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and, in the back of my mind, stewing over my worries.

"Well," I said to myself after a particularly vicious wave of troubling thoughts. "If you want to go somewhere else, you can. There's nothing to keep you here. Nothing except your family...and friends...and a great job...and a ward you are invested in...and an improv comedy troupe...and a crazy nice apartment with crazy low rent and crazy understanding roommates...and fry sauce. But other than that, you are completely footloose and fancy-free. You could go anywhere."

"Oh, come on, Awkward Mormon Girl," I said back to myself. "You are happy with where you are right now. You don't actually want to go anywhere; you're just worried. Besides, it's not like your life is that predictable."

Then Timehop told me what I posted on Facebook that same day last year:

Clearly, I need more ice cream.