Spinning (T-Minus 500 Days)

Several weeks ago, I decided I was going to have a nervous breakdown today. I was originally going to wait until March, but after some deliberation, I thought today would be better. More blog-worthy.

And really I was just impatient.

Turns out, however, I simply have too much to do and frankly don’t have time to have a nervous breakdown. Instead, I’m just going to get down to business:

Today marks 500 days until my 30th birthday, a momentous occasion that will hopefully be met with much revelry … and booze. Not to mention happiness and blissful contentment.

Because right now, quite frankly, the only one of things I have going for me is lots and lots of booze.

For the last year, several friends have told me they wished I would blog about my life in the same sarcastically cheeky and, at times, startling frank, prose that I am apparently known for speaking. I, however, figured there are enough wannabe Carrie Bradshaws out there who think other people actually care about their tales of singledom and I didn’t want to be another one.

So I waited until I could come up with a hook. With some curb appeal. With an idea that was worthy of the comment to my friend Erin about how I like to plan my life crises.

This idea/pre-meditated breakdown all started back in an early October spin class. We were doing a set of sprints when the instructor made an innocuous comment about how our hearts should really be feeling it at that moment. I paused for a second to pay attention to what my heart felt like, how fast it was beating and I tried to remember the last time that anything else made it race to the point it felt ready to burst.

And just like that, I spent the next hill climb thinking. Digging. Trying to come up with something other than continuous pedal strokes that makes my heart feel that alive.

I mean, I don’t even know the last time work did that. It certainly wasn’t because of a man. I haven’t had time to paint or take photos of something other than a sporting event and baking has become a pre-road trip superstitious chore. Wine makes me feel pretty good, and occasionally makes my heart race, but that is hardly the same. And probably not as healthy.

By the time spin class ended, instead of feeling like my normal badass self for totally showing up the waifey blonde on the bike next to me, I felt deflated.

I felt mildly passionless. Grooveless, if you will.

And so I went home and sat on the back deck wearing sweatpants and downing glasses of red wine trying to simultaneously grasp and articulate how my life had gotten to this point.

How I went from having professional goals, plans to buy a home and a clear idea of what I wanted in life to not having a single idea about any of it. To dreading going to work each day. To not talking to my sister for weeks on end because I feel like I have nothing to tell her. To realizing I have spent the last several months in a pseudo-relationship that is neither defined nor satisfying.

To genuinely not having any idea what direction my life is heading, or even which way I want it to go.

I think every 20-something struggles with this to a point and it is certainly not the first time I have felt a sense of panic about my future, but prior to now, any uncertainty was counteracted by the realization that I was at least partly happy. Even if I wasn’t in a relationship, then at least I was content and satisfied at work. Or if work sucked, then at least I had amazing friends to lean on … or a hot guy to hook up with. Or some combination of those situations.

But now, I honestly feel like I have nothing. Not in a dark, depressing, Girl Interrupted sort of way, but in the way that comes from having a less-than-ideal professional life, a personal life that leaves something to be desired and the understanding that you are not in the best place to make either thing better.

And so, I put forth the challenge to myself to figure out what change or changes need to take place … and to actually make them.

To, in short, find my groove.

All in the next 500 days. All by my 30th birthday.