Resurrection of the five star

More than 4 years have passed since my last post, which, let's be honest, was not that stellar or scintillating. Still, re-reading the entries gave me some great memories of a couple of past lives - when did I ever live in southern France? In that sprawling garden specked with palm trees and hugged by a 6-foot stucco wall that Oliver seemed to scale without the least bit of effort. The barbecue terrace roofed by a criss-crossing of grape vines and a twinkling string of dragonfly lights. The images are in my mind, the photos filed deep somewhere in a folder called 2005. How was it that I lived there? And how is it that I'm now stuck in this most pedestrian of a life, back in the U.S., a 9-5 temp job, most of my French forgotten?
Which brings me to the resurrection - the revival of the five star. My inspiration for "Wanna be a five star" is here, but now, in the middle stretch of my early 30s (please can we just stop counting birthdays now??) my five stars have taken on a whole new meaning. My five stars are not about languages, they are not five countries or the five office days a week that lie as an obstacle between me and the weekends. Five stars, my friends, continues to be the setting of goals, the personal challenge I always meant it to be, but now that challenge is much different, much more profound -- at the moment, the challenges are not entirely known to me, the outcome even less certain.
I have my Master's degree, I have a vague idea of what I want to do, I have no idea where I want to be, or where I will end up. But for the moment, the challenge lies ahead. The 9-5 drudgery or the infinity of possibilities? Only the stars know for sure.