suivez la piste

i may have spelled it wrong, my apologies to mme hilton if so.
'suivez la piste' was one of my high school french textbooks.
it pretty much simply means follow the trail. i knew most of the french already from going to school in canada so i don't really recall more than the title. but thats the jist of it today.
follow the trail.
i'm tired of circling a drain that frankly, holds almost no appeal in the first place. i've hit a point where it seems clearly to be an issue of sink or swim. staying here affords me only the first option. without trying to glom onto some poor soul, there's really no hope whatsoever of me being able to improve my situation here in memphis. i am surrounded by rednecks and white trash, and without good transpo i'm not really in a good bargaining position for any job improvements.
i love my bike and can't wait to ride it again, but it does have limitations.
and i'm tired of the cold, so very very very cold tired.
my kids are beautiful and independent. the support they need from me can almost just as easily be given in visits and online chats. my mom is still in good health and my lease is up in october.
frankly i dont want to wait til october, but it is encouraging to see little karmic bits falling in to place. like i need time to get my canadian passport, need time to get travel insurance, sell some extraneous bullshit for travel money and get immunizations etc.
pretty sure i can get out a little bit early if i am doing what i plan to do, which is a little world travelling while i'm still a little able to do it. because i somehow have managed to pick up from god knows where more functional spanish than french, i am setting my sights on central/south america to start. and the cost of living down there is ridiculously cheap.

although i have heard a lot to recommend costa rica, frankly, mi corazon is in colombia right now. i think there would be plenty to do, i have contacted several volunteer organizations, and they have sites all over colombia. i can even take formal spanish classes while there, although you always hear immersion is the best way to learn. theres a ton of hostels there too, so lots of international visitors. most of the volunteer work is with children, but yes they are near the jungle. the real honest to god motherfucking rainforest.

some of my friends have expressed concerns over this being hasty, but really, when i
started to really think about it, it's not that hasty. i've been trying to get away from my
regular job for a while. with the gift of george bush's economic clusterfuck, things here will not be looking up for some time to come. any job i might have had a shot at is now one that easily and extra 20 odd people more qualified than i will also be applying for. i'm good at many things, great at others. but im not a college grad and i can't really compete with them what is. so i'm not going to waste the hope or energy even to try.
we get one life. know your limitations, don't live by them.

why the hell do i want to continue to spend my days at a job i despise, only so i can go home to a fucked up neighborhood where idiots shoot at each other because of parking and can't even take care of their own pets while barely getting by, hoping vainly for an occasional visit with kids who have teenage lives going on. i remember those days well. i'm not bitter about it, genuinely. but i'd like for my day to day life to be a little more rewarding. if there was a way to manage that here, i'd love it. but i barely have time between work and sleep for anything else. and if i learn spanish then when i return i actually will have a marketable skill, not to mention an amazing experience. there is so much of the world i'm never going to see, i'd like to change that a little bit. maybe help a few people on the way. making more of a difference in this life is something i'd like to think i could do.