(With sincere apologies to Joe Strummer, R.I.P.)

Something that has been gnawing at my mind for a long time, is the thought of working outside the United States for some period of time. Mostly, I've been interested in the United Kingdom. London preferably, but not exclusively. I've even gone so far as to put my name and CV in to a few openings in the UK. To be honest, though, I wasn't that sure about whether I'd actually accept and move, were I to be offered a reasonable position and salary. But the job market is (albeit slowly) starting to rebound, and there are gradually more and more openings. Some of them are outside the US, and it's making me think about this more.

First of all, this isn't a statement on the government or crap like the USA PATRIOT act. No, I've been thinking about this since at least 2000, if not earlier. I'd always wondered wistfully, but it was spending two full weeks in London, in November of 2000, that really made me feel the pull. If this were really about being dissatisfied with the reign of "King George", I'd have been more vocal about it before now, and I would probably be trying a lot harder to find some opportunities elsewhere.

No, one of the most motivating factors for me, is the fact that it was so late in my life before I actually visited another country. Now, I understand that there are a lot of Americans who have never visited another country, and almost certainly never will. I'm not complaining when I say that. What I am saying is that now that I've had a taste of it, I know what I've been missing all this time. Had I grown up in Europe (UK or mainland), I would have almost certainly visited at least 2-3 other countries by the time I graduated high school (or the local equivalent). With so many countries so close, that's just the way it works. Here, in the US, visiting other states is almost the same thing. And there are differences in culture to be found in different states, just not as much as the differences between countries. (Well, having grown up in Oklahoma almost my entire life, my first visit to New Orleans almost qualified as visiting a foreign country.) And there is so much more of the world to see, than I have had the chance to. I likened it to our citizens visiting other states, and I have been fortunate-enough to visit 26 of them so far, even if only passing through en route to other places. I don't have to go overseas to explore new ground, but I'm just as interested in experiencing the new cultures (and my trip to North Carolina doesn't count).

To further complicate things, I've now been in California long enough to feel like I should buy a home. Indeed, I probably should have before now, but I've been telling myself that I wasn't really sure if I would stay here long-enough to get the kind of return on investment that I would need. I've been here over six years, now, and short of moving to Europe I don't see myself leaving the bay area anytime soon. But even as I talk to a mortgage broker, there is still this little tickle in the back of my brain. It's saying, "Are you sure you want to purchase and settle down? What about London? What about Europe?" I don't have an answer to the little voice's questions.

Part of it would feel like I was running away, and in a way I would be. Each time before, when I've made a drastic relocation, I've looked at it as a chance to start over. To leave behind the embarrassing and humiliating things that I associated with the previous place. Even more, I look at it as a chance to try again for romance, to find a life-partner. When I was going from middle school to high school, I was just looking to leave behind the stigmas of not being very popular or athletic. When I went from high school to college, I was hoping to leave behind the sting of having little or no social skills and having barely dated. When I left Oklahoma, it was again a chance to start over, to leave behind a lot of regrets, shame and painful memories. And so on, and so forth. I'm finally starting to catch on that just moving (even 1300 miles) isn't enough to overcome these things. But I can't help it if part of me thinks that 10,000 miles might do the trick, even though I know on an intellectual level that it won't.

But I have always loved travel and exploration. If I don't move, I will have to figure out a way to travel more than I currently do (and that's saying a lot, since I do travel a fair amount each year as it is). It's just my old indecisiveness: I can't tell if it is practicality or timidity that prevents me from just diving into things and aggressively pursuing a job overseas. I generally leave bigger things like this up to chance; they work out, or they don't, and either way I adapt and move along with things. But this one is so big, it seems like I am short-changing myself to leave it to so fickle an authority as fate.

I really shouldn't be thinking this much, or this hard, so late at night.