Amurrica, you're stressin' me out.

Do you ever feel like you just need to escape?

From school, from work, from stress, from friends, from family, from your country, from your life?

I do.

I need to escape right now. In fact, I needed to escape last night.

You know how right before you fall asleep, you think about everything, and sometimes you can come up with crazy ideas of how everything is going to get better?

No?

That's just me?

For example:

If things are going good, just before falling asleep I think about how great my life is, and I come up with "great ideas" of what other good situations can come my way.

If things are going bad, just before falling asleep I come up with this "great idea" of how to make it better. Only to wake up in the morning and

A) not remember, or

B) realize how out of reach and crazy it is.

Well, last night before going to bed I was having a major crisis. I just kept thinking about my rent, gas prices, my previous employment, my semester wasted because I changed my major, my current inability to get a job causing my inability to commit to a future apartment, etc.

It literally makes me sick to my stomach. They say, "You live, you learn," and expect that to make it all okay.

Yes, I've learned a lot. But I can't help but wish I were able to say, "You learn, you live."

So, amid my 1 a.m. crisis, I violently chewed out America and the crashing economy. I rhetorically asked the people, "You raise the gas prices! You won't employ me! JUST HOW, America, am I supposed to live?"

Obviously this was an ignorant statement. Don't holler at me. In anger we sometimes say things we don't mean.

So as I cursed America, I turned on my reggae music and let the memories of my past trips to Mexico and the islands flood my mind. I felt my heartbeat slow as I pictured my butt in a hammock, my fingers fondling the sand, and the palm tree breeze blowing through my pony tail. A picture a know all too well.

But suddenly the picture began to change, as it became something new to me; a picture I've never seen.

I hopped out of the hammock and jogged to the tiki hut. I grabbed a Coca-cola, poured it into a cup of ice and I handed to a cheery tourist. I directed him to the line of free fruits where other tourists stood. I smiled and waved to a happy native bringing me a coconut.

I talked to the tourist as if I ran the tiki hut; I talked to the native as if we were friends.

It was the perfect picture; a new picture. Something I've thought about and wished for, but nothing I've ever pictured. Nothing I've ever imagined as a possibility.

But last night, when America seemed too much for me, I pictured myself in the place I've always dreamed of being. Living the life I could never dare to live.

Planning is the most important part of goal setting. Management 101 baby.

So I planned.

I'm leaving for the Virgin Islands in April on a cruise. When I get off at a port, I plan to never board that cruise ship again. Just stay on the island with what I brought. Open a tiki hut on the beach, befriend the natives. If I can't find a place to live, I'll sleep on the dang hammock. I don't care.