This year has been an insane year for traveling. 

I rang in the New Years in Vegas. What a start.

I was up in San Francisco in February, then headed to Vegas in March before I left for Spain for two months. The Spain trip was: Madrid, Andalusia, San Sebastian, Barcelona, and Menorca.

Came back, then drove to the Grand Canyons and then the Salton Sea (a great day trip).

Went up to San Francisco again in July, then followed that up with an East Coast swing (NYC, Boston, and NC) for a friend's wedding. August and September were relatively quiet (a few day trips up to LA), until this Europe trip (Brussels and Munich) for a wedding and Oktoberfest. 

I have to count my lucky stars that I get to travel for fun so much, but to be honest, it's starting to wear on me a bit. I don't plan on traveling for the rest of October or November, but I'm starting to think about going back to Brussels for winter. I've never experienced the *cold* winter in a big city, and I've been hearing lovely things about how nice Brussels is around Christmas. 

I've already booked Vegas for NYE (becoming something of a tradition), but the big question is whether I should make it out to Brussels for December... would be nice to head out there after Thanksgiving and come back before NYE...

. . .

While I've really enjoyed the traveling this year, I wonder if my stubbornness in staying single is a symptom or the root cause of this need to travel. It's easy to tell yourself that you *can't* have a relationship while you're traveling around - but I wonder if I simply keep traveling to avoid having any meaningful relationships. 

It struck me today how true this was with all the recent people I've been socializing with. I feel like I've gotten incredibly good at making a good first impression with people - hitting it off with strangers for a single night and getting to know them and having a great conversation... then never following up with those people again in my life. It happens a lot with dudes ("one night bromances" - when you meet some random dude who doesn't know anybody else at the wedding, and you end up connecting and talking like old friends all night - but never seeing them again), but I've noticed an uptick on this happening with girls lately. I'll flirt, we'll have great conversations, we'll have a connection, and then ... I'll never follow up with them. 

This doesn't sound very healthy - just sounds incredibly nomadic. 

. . .

One of the things I realized about the wedding I just went to - it's time I do one of two things: stop being nomadic, or stop using traveling as an excuse to not connect. Invest in people, invest in a personal relationship... I feel like I'm starting to get over the pain of last year's relationships. 

. . .

It's been a while since I've had a fun crush.

Back in the day, I used to crush on girls I could never actually date, to use them as my muses (something my therapist was not healthy - WHATEVS).

Somewhere along the way, I started crushing on girls I had a chance with, and that was not good. Screw that!

I found a wonderful crush at the wedding in Belgium (and no, that has nothing to do with my decision to want to come back to Brussels), so if you suddenly start seeing a ton of motivated work coming out of me, you'll know where it's coming from (funny how that works for me).