One Way Ticket, Please

One of my biggest fears is being mediocre. Considering a life where I never sell a novel, see the Eiffel tower, lose this god-forsaken weight, stay seeped in mountains of debt--well it's just plain unacceptable to me.
I was looking at pictures from all over the world yesterday on Yahoo News, CNN, somewhere, when I saw photos of "Tomatina" a tomato fight in a small town near Valencia, Spain. I have seen pictures of this epic red tomato bath numerous times and to some this might not seem like something to get all achy over, but I desperately want to participate in this world-renowned tomato fight before I die. It seems so bizarre and unlike anything in America that I actually had dreams about selling all my worldly possessions just to get there.
Some of you may be snickering thinking, okay you weirdo, why don't you just throw tomatoes in your backyard or something? No, that's not the point. This is huge. It's a festival in Spain. Spain, people. Who cares why the hell they are creaming each other with tomatoes? Every picture I've seen over the years, people are laughing and screaming and it looks more decadent to me then a massage at a luxury spa in Aspen--though okay, I'd gladly take that too.
I don't know if it's something in my DNA, but I have always had some of the most grand and lavish dreams imaginable. Besides getting mad as a child at Amelia Earhart for beating me to the punch on the whole flying across the Atlantic bit, I would fancy myself marrying Prince William and graduating with honors from Harvard. Yeah, so neither of those exactly panned out, but even then I couldn't see myself living an ordinary life.
I want to trek through uncharted territory in foreign lands and meet people who's languages I couldn't possibly decipher. I don't want to just see the Seven Wonders of the World, I want to see the ones that aren't even mentioned in National Geographic.
I want to skydive, and learn to fly fish, go sailing and learn the ropes, sleep in a real tree-house, walk a red carpet, attend a ball, take a sauna in Finland, learn Italian, paddle through white water rapids, live in a dingy apartment in New York City that's mine all mine, and quite frankly, maybe never live in the burbs or attend my high school reunion.
Maybe that makes me a tad unconventional, but heck this is something I have always accepted about myself.
In fact today at my job--in the banking world--while searching out information for a member that was particularly hard to find, I pretended I was Sherlock Holmes and my co-worker was Watson. I got an immense amount of pleasure and glee from turning mere numbers and lines into a puzzle that only a detective could solve. It made it seem less like a tedious task and more like I was living in the late 19th century in some studio piled high with books in a cellar in Bath.
Yeah, I guess maybe I am just crazy. But, I think it might be just the ticket for escape.