I have a recurring daydream which surfaces periodically, usually provoked by a story or picture depicting the lure of a world somehow different than my own. What would it be like, I wonder, to live somewhere new, where no one knows me, where nothing has been given the chance to grow boring and mundane?

The other day I was listening to NPR and they were interviewing random people who live on Route 50, an interstate stretching from the Pacific to the Atlantic. As each new interviewee answered questions and revealed their perspective, my mind began to wonder what my life would be like if I lived in Eureka, Nevada or Leawood, Kansas? What job would I have? Who would I know? Who would people think I was? It always seems so much more adventurous and quixotic than my own predictable life.

I always feel guilty when I think like this, because I'm actually quite happy and feel confident that I couldn't, and wouldn't, leave the world I know, no matter how tempting the mysterious unknown.

Concurrently, I am reminded of the blessed ties that bind; my loving husband, friends I cannot imagine losing, and a family I already miss.

The romance of the unknown pales in comparison to my treasured witnesses, the ones who are there to see and listen to the mundane details of my life, to verify that I experience, grow, change, exist.