The grass is always greener...

Do we always want what we can't have? Is it just a symptom of selfish twenty-somethings, or is everyone like this?

I have a great job and I'm thankful for the paycheck that's miraculously deposited into my bank account every other Friday, but when my unemployed friends flit from city to city sleeping on futons, visiting friends, and barhopping, it's hard not to feel jealous. I want the spontaneity of their lives. I want the flexibility. I want the freedom and the epic stories that come with crashing on a college friend's couch.

My unemployed friends tell me I'm crazy. "You think we want this? Roaming from place to place?" They tell me their parents harass them daily to find work, their savings are dwindling miserably, their rent feels scarily high. "The grass is always greener," they say as they hop on the bus to NY for the weekend...

But it's more than just the job thing. Not to pull a Carrie Bradshaw, but it's relationships too. As a young person, I spent months looking for a guy. The bar scene in DC is hectic and exhausting and I'm not the online dating type. But when you finally find someone who makes you happy, you second guess things. You're vulnerable again. A part of you longs for the independence and sense of self that comes from not catering to another person's needs.

A part of me feels like I should cut all ties. Remove the bindings that hold me to my current life (job, apartment, boyfriend) and see what I'm left with.

I feel antsy and in need of some serious self reflection. I want to visit Chile, San Francisco, Australia. I want to walk and run and canoe? Sitting at my desk day in and day out, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week,  351 days per year feels stifling.

I'm 23 and not getting any younger.  Now is my time.

But maybe, the grass is always greener?