I recently read Douglas Coupland's Generation X. It was recommended to my by a friend, and as I read it I felt cheated that I had not been exposed to it as a teenager, because at the ripe young age of 15, I would have dogmatized it. I feel a little jealous that it hadn't come to me in a time before car payments and credit cards, leases and jobs. I could have really done things differently if I had been awakened to the writing when I was younger.

Now, I have spent the past 7 years defining my self worth based on my job and the company I work for, the exclusivity of attaining such a position. I have never waited tables or tended bar. And something inside me just clicked. I realized that living a life that my 15 year old self would have admired, is completely my choice, and within my power. 15 year old Hannah wasn't such a bad chick, and if I really want to go out on a limb, I would say that 15 year old Hannah was intellectually rad. Curious, inquisitive, politically opinionated, an avid reader of fiction and classical works alike, a bit skeptical of committing to one thing for too long, and why shouldn't she be?

25 year old Hannah has a job with a snack room, good benefits, and a moleskin journal with nothing to fill it with. 25 year old Hannah has no spiritual or political opinions she will express, and a handful of hobbies or so called passions that spend more time in their boxes being stored neatly than making a mess of.

25 year old Hannah is safe.

So something changed, instantly. Someone said two words to me and I was hardly listening, and everything changed. This is a promise.

I am selling everything I own, and moving. But that's not entirely foreign to my life so far. I moved to NY after selling most of my belongings last year, and I had a grand goal to get a job with a startup. Well I did that and did it make me happy? New York doesn't make me happy, but in individual pieces, those things seem like accomplishments that bring me joy. But something is missing. I'm still a cog in a system I didn't mean to opt into, it's just harder to imagine not belonging sometimes.

This time I am selling my stereo, my iPad Mini, my cameras, my books, my screen printing set, my bed, my dresser, my shoes, my last designer purse and my nice Michael Kors watches. My bicycle is for sale, my roller derby skates, my couches, my coffee maker. Everything must go. Everything I own should fit in the small trunk of my car.

I will keep my tent. My hammock. My hiking boots. I'll sell my brand new iMac to buy a MacBook Pro.

I am camping across America this summer. I want to see Niagara Falls, the sand hills. Nashville, and Chicago. I will visit my mother's grave in Wyoming, and my grandmother in Cheyenne as well. I will camp in the moon crater state park, and at Miner's Delight ghost town. I will see Carhenge, and the giant statue of the Jolly Green Giant. I want to see the boom town of Williston, North Dakota to glance at the camps people live in for a chance to find work drilling oil from the Bakken.

I have no time limit for this adventure. As long as I can afford to be transient, I will. And then I will settle in Portland, Oregon and work some tables or a bar for a few months until I go down to Taos, NM to work on building an Earthship.

If you'd like to purchase any of my stuff, you can see some of it listed for sale here.

Here is a photo from a Jenny Holzer exhibit to leave you with:

Big Changes