We move too fast to remember.

'I'm healthy. Incurably healthy. No sorrows, No regrets. No past, no future. The present is enough for me. Day by day. Today! Le bel aujourd'hui!"-Henry Miller

Welcome, autumn and all that embodies this wonderful season; pumpkin cheesecake, pumpkin soup, shipyard pumpkin ale, fall hikes and a brisk chill in the air. October also marks my 10th month of unemployment, which makes me realize how quickly this year has went.

Within a blink of an eye, I found myself driving a U-Haul van through New York to help Chase move his life into storage. It feels like this year never happened, as if I was gone longer than I was here. In one more week, I will be no longer living in Jersey City as well.

At the start of this year, I promised myself that I would continue to travel as long as I could maintain what was in my savings account at the beginning of the year. Whatever I made this year in freelance work would be spent traveling.

After a great deal of freelance work in September coupled with the fact that my lease is coming to an end, I have decided to take a two month trip to Australia and New Zealand.

Freedom can sometimes be completely daunting. At times, even unnatural. When I ask myself why I am spending another 2 months abroad, my gut reminds me, because I can. I have the time and the money, so why not? It's that simple (aside from the fact that it's a personal goal to visit 6/7 continents by the time I am 30.)

I think this feeling stems from the fact that we are accustom to working 40 hours a week for years on end. While there is nothing inherently wrong with making an honest living and working 40 hours a week, anything other than that lifestyle can sometimes seem foreign to us. It can feel wrong. But why should it?

With my time off this year, I've realized that my self-worth is not dependent upon what I do for a living. It certainly does not make me who I am. Sometimes if you take the work out of a man, he can feel worthless, as if he no longer has a purpose. It truly is a test to find meaning in this life, after you have removed work from the equation.

Many people often ask me, "What do you do all day since you aren't working?" I usually respond by saying, I've gotten very good at just existing. By just getting up each day, chatting with friends and listening to music, I feel good. That's what I do.

With all that said, come January I will have no place to live (I'll most likely be on my friends couch in Brooklyn) and I still won't have a full time job. I am finally getting the desire to return to full time work. A feeling that I have not felt all year. It's almost time. Could it be that after Australia and New Zealand that my travel bug will subside for the time being?

In part, it's due to the fact that I will be bleeding money out the ass. Between two months of travel and needing to buy a new computer for my freelance jobs, I am feeling the need to get back on track financially for 2010.