Wayward Princess Manifesto

So I meant to post this when I wrote it (and e-mailed it to friends and family) but... I didn't quite have the time before fleeing for vacation. But, since I haven't told anyone about this blog and I'm pretty sure no one knows it exists or reads it, I am going with the assumption that my tardiness is forgiveable.

So anyway, what follows is my announcement to the world of my plans to chuck any and all current responsibilities in favor of wandering for a while.

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Dear family, friends and ill-behaved hob-goblins (you know who you are!)

It is official. After 25 ½ years – give or take a month (and probably a few nights in college) – of being utterly responsible I’ve decided to quite my job (and paycheck and benefits) with no clear prospect of a new job/purpose - let alone a sense of when said new job/purpose might meander into my life or what said new job/purpose might be.

What I do know is my last day of work is May 13 - Whoo hoo!!

So what are you going to do after May 13 Brooke?

I’ve decided to accept a position (unpaid) as “Wayward Princess.” It is essentially a diplomatic and honorary position. I will be primarily representing my extended family (which has been without a wayward daughter/sister/cousin/niece for quite some time) but I am open to consulting as well.

While I don’t officially end my job and take the position of Wayward Princess until May 13, I will be starting my training next week with a Royal Caribbean cruise in the Western Caribbean. Me, Ajay and 18 of his closest relatives will be floating around Key West, Mexico and Belize for 5 days. As I near the end of my seventh (yes SEVENTH, can you believe it?!) nasty winter away from the west coast I am really – REALLY! – looking forward to sun, water, heat, jungles, islands, and so on.

After I leave AFSC my first assignment will be in India. I leave May 20 for Hyderabad (in the middle of the south) where I will be visiting my Sweet Pea (aka “Vaidya Gullapalli”) who is Indian, grew up in India, has family in India and moved back there in November where I don’t get to see her and hardly ever get to even talk to her. I will languish in the heat for a week or so while she wraps up with her job there and then we will travel around Kashmir and Northern bits of India before returning to Hyderabad to see what all of interest lurks in and about Hyderabad. There is a rumor that one or two of our other friends may join us for parts of this Indo-adventure.

I then fly back to the US on the 29th-ish of June and will stagger around NYC for a couple of days with intense jet-lag before going to Grass Valley, California. There I will do a seven-week session of massage school. I also would like to participate in the Donner Lake Triathlon in some manner or other. However, since my training for the event will consist of traveling in India I’ll probably just do the swim and hopefully find other team members to do the bike and run.

Following massage school will be Cycle Oregon (www.cycleoregon.com) which is an 8-day, 425 mile bicycle ride around various parts of Oregon with my step-mom Marsha, dad Clark and 1,997 soon-to-be-closest-friends. It actually seems a tad bit ludicrous, which puts it right on par with the rest of my plans and so is perfect.

After Cycle Oregon… big foggy cloud. I know there is a wedding I’ll be going to in October and a conference in Austin, TX I’d like to go to. I’d also like to go visit my brother who is living in Poland… but nothing too clear about the bigger pieces (like where I’ll live, what I’ll do, if I’ll go to graduate school, etc.) has come to me yet.

Many of you know that things in the world of Brooke – professionally, family-ly, personally, physically and more – have been rather “challenging” the last year and a half or so – the last six months most particularly. I really don’t know what I want to do, where I want to do it, when I want to do it, etc. What I do know though is that the way things are now have to change. There are pieces of my life and work in Philadelphia that are amazing and wonderful (even within the “challenges”) and I kinda get freaked out when I think about the fact that I’m quitting and leaving. But I also know that I really need to step away from a lot of the challenges and hard parts that are exhausting, painful and overwhelming and that by trying to hold on too tightly to these things I love and want I’m not doing them or me very much good.

So I’m going to take care of me for a while. I’m going to travel, hang out with friends and family, EAT A LOT, get massages, give massages and know that when I get to the fall things will be different – and hopefully be different in some good, healthy ways. And maybe along the way some sort of sense of “what to do next” will even emerge!

Forgive me Gandhi, but my mantra of late has been: I must be the change I wish to see in my life! And so I’m going to make all these changes.

Much love to all of my sweet potatoes,
Brooke! (aka "Wayward Princess")

p.s. Comments, questions, concerns, (not to mention what you’ve been up to!) are quite welcome!!