Success

A couple of days ago I was out at a bar with some friends of mine and I saw someone who I recognized. He was a person who I had known a long time ago. Unfortunately, he was 'that guy' at the bar. Completely drunk, going up to people and talking about nothing, making a scene. He recognized me and came over we started talking he asked how I was doing since I was back from Africa, told him I'd still been bouncing around and that I was going to Alaska in the spring. He then said something along the lines of 'wow you're doing better than I am. I've never left this place and you've gone out and traveled everywhere!' Statements like this always make me feel a little awkward, people who say they're envious of the life I live, or say 'I wish I could do that'. Because, while the support is nice and welcome, I want to tell people to stop being envious and just live like I do if they want to so bad.

Another thing that's going on this picture is that me and this person both graduated from the same local High School down the street. We can't 'start over' here. People who we wish didn't know our business, people see us for what we were not what who we are now, there are some things that never going to shake. One of mine is I'm known as either 'Jasons little sister' or 'Johns daughter', I'm rarely just Melissa. All us kids growing up in rural Vermont always wanted to 'get out'. There aren't really a whole lot of jobs that are glamorous to a 16 year old kid living in Belmont, Vermont. I wanted to tell him that southern Vermont was just a place and it wasn't a defeat to still be living in the same place that you went to high school in. It's different when you discover a place than if you're born into a place. But that place you discovered, someone at one point felt stuck there and wanted to get out just as badly as you wanted to get into it. Where you are, you're attitude depends on if it's heaven or hell.

But then this begs the question what is success and how does one measure it? There are lots of people who I think of as successful. The guy at the bar I know has two children, wouldn't that count as successful? Owning your own business isn't that successful? Having roots in a community isn't that successful? Success isn't always determined by the money in your pocket or how free your appear to be. Everyone I've ever met is successful in one way or another.