T-Minus 35 Days. That's all I've got.

Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day and I feel like I should have some strong feelings about it and to be honest, I really don’t. I am once more on the road for work (it seems the only time I ever have to write) and I have to admit I really don’t care about too much right now.

I wish I could report I was at least abiding by my New Year’s Resolution each every day, but I had to go back and look at what I wrote because, for the life of me, I couldn’t even remember what I wrote a month and a half ago.

Fearing less? I think that would require giving a shit.

Which I don’t. Not exactly a sign of progress.

I think I have, however, finally lost hope on Sparks and I wish I just had stuck to it when I tried to give it up back before Christmas. Giving up allows more of a chance to hold onto pride than losing; at least I had some choice in the matter before. He sucked me back in though, with talk of trying to get together and with text messages that would make just about anyone blush. It appeared the pissing dog scenario came into play, even from long distance.

 Instead, it also appears he has apparently realized this – whatever this is – is simply not worth it after nearly a year. Or at least that is what I take from complete silence for the last two weeks after a reasonable facsimile of a disagreement and an awkward convo.

Who knew it was possible to lose something you never had to begin with? Or that it would suck so much.

Should our paths cross again in a month, as they have for each of the last two years and are predicted to again, it is hard to imagine having the strength (or desire) not to give in and go down this road again. For which I will apologize for now.

All I have until then are 35 more days in my 20’s, which probably isn’t enough time to figure out what I came here to do. Find some passion. Some groove.

Or maybe it is. Who knows?

I’m just trying to make myself care about it again.

Failure and Forward Movement (T-Minus 77 Days)

Exactly 365 days ago, I wrote about my resolution to be Fearless. I proclaimed I would spend 2011 living boldly, loving myself and turning said self into the woman I wanted to be.

I sit here a year later and accept I have utterly and completely failed in doing every one of those things.

I can say this because I am quite literally sitting in the exact same place I was when I pledged to dive straight into life with freeing abandon.

I am traveling for work and am in the same city, sitting in the same coffee shop across the street from the hotel in roughly the same (only available) seat and quite possibly wearing the same sweatpants and drinking the same coffee. At least I got a chocolate chip cookie today; I think I went scone last year

Regardless of baked good choice, the level of irony is palpable.

Believe in yourself. Embrace your beauty. Discover a new passion.

Hardly.

I may have blindly (and without any real commitment) searched for another job, allowed my heart to feel something for a fleeting moment and read more self help books than a shrink-in-training, but I truly have not done any of the above. Although there were certainly a few high points, for the most part 2011 will go down in the books as a complete time suck of a year.

And that’s just awful.

When I revisited the whole fearlessness idea back in October, I gave myself a hard time about the lack of progress and admitting an intense level of fear of happiness and success, or of getting what I thought I want and realizing it’s not enough. On the cusp of a new year, the year I just so happen to turn 30, I’m calling the above statement poppycock. A cop-out of epic proportions.

Bullocks.

Ever since letting go on the hope of a relationship with Sparks last week, I have found myself systematically bidding adieu to this last year and embracing a different approach to entering this next one. There are 77 days until I turn 30. No matter what has gone down in the last 423 days, I have 77 chances to make my 29th year the best ever and set up No. 30 to be even better.  

I pledge to fear … less … and to make every day count, for the next 77 and beyond.

Some Finite Goals for 2012

* Run a 5K

* Drop an L-bomb, or at least become comfortable using the word

* Go surfing

* Travel, for real.

* Get back on the bike.

* Find a new job, or figure out what it would take to embrace the current one.

 “Remember that wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure.”

- Paulo Coelho -

Losing Hope (In a Good Way) T-Minus 85 Days

As always, it’s been awhile.

It’s very nearly Christmas and I realize I never even got around to posting what I wrote around Thanksgiving, mostly because it was much of the same drivel as a year ago and I never got around to coming up with something new. I made a crack about it being the blogs and my second Thanksgiving together, meaning it had lasted longer than any of my previous relationships, and then went on to talk about being grateful for the platonic relationships in my life and having the opportunity to build and cultivate them.

I am still quite thankful to have spent the bulk of my post-college life as a single woman; it’s given me the opportunity to be selfish, career-minded … and able to buy multiple pairs of shoes without being judged upon returning home. I have wonderful friendships that are my whole world, but we’ve been through all that and you don’t need to hear about this or this again.

Instead, I am going to beat another subject to death and say I’m quite grateful for Sparks.

This is what I wrote about the topic a week ago (before getting distracted from actually posting, yet again):

It’s been nine months since he became a semi-permanent fixture in my life and even though we have yet to re-consummate the affair that started back then, it’s been one of the happier “relationships” I have had. The long-distance banter and conversation are better than anything I have been able to find locally and the belief our paths will cross again gives me enough hope to be satisfied with the situation.

I’m currently reading this book (shocking, I know) which will inevitable spin me into a complete meltdown upon completion, but is in the meantime, giving me much to daydream and think about. The Lost Girls is a true story about three friends who are feeling the pressure of looming 30th birthdays (sound familiar?) and choose to quit their jobs, leave everything behind and travel the world for a year, covering roughly 60,000 miles and four continents.

I have one continent remaining and have no idea how it will end, but a chapter I read last night struck a chord. Jen, one of the women in the book, met a man in Thailand, another American who was a friend of a friend, and they hit it off over what was supposed to a single drink while passing through town.

She left after three days not knowing when she would see him again, but confident in the faith of being able to nearly instantaneously feel love (and be loved). I can speak from experience in saying that feeling, even veiled by clouds of uncertainty, can do wonders for the soul.

Jen’s recollection of seeing Matt for the first time and the ensuing chemistry made me think back to the moment I first met Sparks.

I have never told anyone this, not even him, but I remember like it was yesterday. It was almost exactly four years ago and I was still at my previous job and Sparks was in town for an event. I was walking down the hall and saw this guy looking over reading material on the table and I felt a flicker of something I had never felt before, and have not felt since. I would never, ever call it love at first sight, but it was an attraction based on the simple feeling this man was supposed to be a part of my life, even before speaking to him.

If one were to stick Sparks in a lineup of men and ask my closest friends to pick out the one I would most likely be attracted to, he would probably not be the winner. He might not even make the Top 3. Despite that, I could never shake the feeling he was supposed to be around, so we established a professional relationship that would continue by email and occasional face time when we would cross paths, until nine months ago when on one cold winter night, a few beers led us to venturing into territory I think we both knew was three-plus years in the making.

From there, you know the story. Or at least what’s out there for public consumption.

And that’s where it ended. Now, a week later, I have a slightly different perspective.

After explaining the previous partial entry to a friend, finally telling the story of Sparks’ and my meeting out loud, she said to me “So you really believe he is the one?” and I was taken aback. I was partially surprised to hear she thought I was that much of a romantic, but I also had to analyze what I really thought about the situation.

I can now unequivocally say I do not believe in “The One,” Sparks or otherwise. I think the most any of us can hope for is the right one at the right time and all too often we find ourselves meeting the right one at the wrong time (or more often the wrong one at the right time or the wrong one at the wrong time).

Even if it makes me a bit of a romantic, I have spent nine months not wanting to accept or believe in the notion Sparks may simply be the right guy at the wrong time. It’s a strange feeling to have been so accurate in our initial meeting, especially because the reality of the connection far outweighed any fantasy, but to know the chances of long-term success is near impossible.

Sometime over the summer I forgot I wasn’t Katherine Heigl in [insert really, really bad rom-com] and latched onto the idea anyone who could make me as happy as Sparks did (and does still, sometimes) was worth just about anything.

Truth is, I’m not willing or able to change my life for someone else right now, no matter how great he may be. I still need to make significant changes for myself – there is no way I can expect someone else to love a version of me I don’t even always like. There doesn’t seem to be a way to halfway commit to someone seven hours or a $400 plane ticket away, so I am accept it is not going to happen. Timing is, after all, about 90 percent of a successful relationship.

And so this Christmas, at a time which is supposed to be full of hope, I am instead of letting go of a piece of it. Outside of the occasional drunk text, I cannot hold onto the hope of Sparks and me as an us. Even though my selfishness is probably at the root of a lot of the “problems” I currently have, I think it’s important to hold onto it a little longer.

With 10 minutes until I board the plane to go see my family for Christmas, I bid that particular piece of hope adieu.

I will forever be grateful to Sparks for helping me realize my heart is capable of feeling something resembling love and I think the sooner I can accept that is probably the extent of his purpose in my life, the better. If you had told me four years ago this is where we would be after our awkward introduction in a crowded hallway, I never would have believed it. But I think it’s probably exactly where we’re supposed to be. For now. 

State of the Groove (T-Minus 135 Days)

It’s hard to believe I started this blog a year ago today. I figured the anniversary was as good a time as any to check myself and see how far I have come and how far I have yet to go. For a refresher on how and why this 500-day countdown began, please check out my first entry: Spinning. 

In short, I had a revelation in spin class one night about how I didn’t remember the last time something had caused my heart to race or make me feel truly alive. After some inner deliberation, I realized I simply felt passionless ... “Grooveless, if you will.”

And so, thus began the quest to find my groove before my 30th birthday (which now is 135 days away, by the way).

Somewhere along the way, I simplified (perhaps too much) the process into three prongs: my professional life, my romantic life and my personal space. I thought if I could find a job that made me as happy as this one did at the beginning, a man I wanted to makeout with for more than a week at a time and a place to call home, I would find the ole groove at the point where all those prongs intersected.

If I analyze the last year based on those things, it appears I am right where I started. I am still in the same job; I still spend the majority of my Friday nights watching DVR-ed TV with wine; and I still live in this topography –less city pining for the West Coast.

But after a moment of self-degradation, I realized I actually have come a long way.

I’m not going to lie, when I started writing about my foray into online dating, I didn’t see things becoming this deep or this level of self actualization coming. For those who were invested in the tales of Mr. NDNS, Rock Doc, The M-P or any others I may have forgotten about, part of me is sorry it got away from that. Even for me, it was way more fun pretending to be Carrie Bradshaw than realizing I want the career success of Miranda, the committed but liberated relationship of Samantha/Smith and the outdoor living of Aiden.

At least I managed to get Mr. Big out of the picture. 

In addition to finally accomplishing that, I also have discovered a lot about myself in the last year and, to be honest, the bulk of it I don’t like. My fears – of change, commitment, failure and even more so, success and happiness – were really frustrating things to realize when I spend the bulk of my time pretending to epitomize the opposite. The time I have wasted in a funk or being angry has mostly been because of the discovery of my own limitations.

Hitting emotional rock bottom (again, not in a dark Girl, Interrupted way, but in a lost yet optimistic way) was the only way to really begin to gain clarity, which I think I have done (or at least have started to).

I now am starting to realize the three prongs may not ever intersect or, if they do, it’s somewhere down the line and not in the way I think they should at this particular moment. Right now, the key is pick one path and see where it goes. In the last week, I have had conversations/offers/discussions with people who could help guide me down any one of them; however, it appears all are mutually exclusive of the others (the possibilities are literally spread across three time zones).

Now I am forced to prioritize my goals and, while I still feel little lost, I am excited for all the possible opportunities. One might say my heart rate has even picked up a bit.  

I’m torn between:

1.  The idea of being a really big deal in my current business, which is something a large part of me wants to check off my life to-do list, even if I know it’s not something I want to continue for the long haul (Eastern time zone)
2. Holding out a few more months, throwing caution to the wind and moving out West with hopes of getting a job at a really, really great company and be the nature-loving granola girl (Pacific)
3. Coming up with a way to give things with Sparks a legitimate chance because it’s not from seven hours away with both of us working 24/7 six months out of the year (Central)

If I choose 1, then I will be able to dabble with 3 but the status of things will remain what they are now. Through Door 2 is an entirely new life and 3 would mean some compromise, which sounds like a dirty word to a lot of independent women, but I think the key is compromising without conceding. 

All are great options and have the potential to lead to success, but which line of success is the most important? I guess I will just have to follow the signs and find out as I go. I am doing my best to relax and trust in two of my favorite lines from The Alchemist, which is still one of my guidebooks for the next 135 days (and beyond).

“When you want something all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”

“Remember that wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure.”

- Paulo Coelho -

Fearlessness Revisited (T-Minus 146 Days)

On Sunday morning, moments before running the Nike Women’s Marathon, Digital Royalty’s Amy Jo Martin posted a blog entry about being Fearless. In the face of adversity greater than turning 30 and still being single, she writes if we want to be free, we need to fear LESS and how that has epitomized her life over the last few years.

This struck a chord, as some may remember my one and only New Year’s Resolution this year was to Be Fearless and I realized Sunday I have been doing anything but. Directly stolen from Self Magazine, I wrote:

BE FEARLESS.

If you make one resolution this year, let it be to live boldly.
You control this moment: rather than cautiously test the water, 
dive straight into life with freeing abandon.
Imagine the person you want to be and the life you want to live, 
and then simply commit to them.
Believe in yourself. Embrace your beauty. Discover a new passion.
And whatever you do, wherever you go, don’t be afraid to make a splash.

I have spent a lot of time doing the imagining part, but not so much the committing. Or the believing. Or the embracing.

So I started to wonder what exactly it is I am afraid of and I think I got at least a partial answer today.

Once or twice a year I have the inexplicable desire to Facebook/LinkedIn/Google stalk the ex known as The Asshole, or the man who broke me. Some part of me must sense when he is going through major life changes because I have managed to stalk days within his engagement, wedding and now, the birth of his first child.

Something about today was harder to handle than the rest. I never really thought there was a chance of us getting back together, but the presence of a child confirms that. He officially is married to someone who is basically the same person as I and they have a child. There is tiny, miniscule, infinitesimal part of me that wishes it were me.  

I think about the person I was when he and I were together and it’s largely who I would like to be again. Confident, strong and happy. I didn’t sleep through 5 a.m. workouts, spend time at work looking for other jobs or use Friday nights as an excuse to drink wine alone (OK, maybe the latter occasionally).

I knew what I wanted. And I lost my groove.

If the skinn(ier), healthier, happier, more motivated version of me wasn’t enough then, who is to say it will be if I work to find that woman again?

So there you go, it turns out I am scared of success. Or at least still failing in the face of success.

Which is so beyond stupid.

Maybe being Fearless is a little bit too much to take on at once. Maybe it’s more important to heed Amy Jo Martin’s words and just fear a little bit less right now.  To let myself be vulnerable again and be OK with it, instead of making excuses.

Here’s to 5 a.m. workouts again I guess.

Eternal Flame (152 Days)

It’s been awhile since I have mentioned Sparks, though I have to admit it was not for lack of thought on my part. I think about him more than I care to admit, especially late at night after one too many drinks when thoughts tend to turn into drunk texts. Even intoxicated, our banter is pretty sizzling and by the end of the conversation, I will inevitably bring up the idea of us getting together.  To which he will check his schedule and turn me down.

And I will feel silly, but brush it off until the next morning when I think “Did I really do that? Again? He has to think I’m psycho, clueless and pitiful.”

To use an extended fire metaphor (you know I love those), I likened the process to me attempting to poke the coals and get the embers to relight, while he was the gust of wind that kept snuffing them out.

After this happened again Thursday evening, I decided Friday morning the fire needed to go out. The sparks needed to be snuffed. And so I sent him a note admitting I knew I was crazy to still hold onto what happened seven months ago and letting him know how foolish I feel for the texts, calls and propositions. I apologized and tried to cover everything up, like a skilled outdoorswoman leaves no trace after putting out a campfire.

To say his response was not what I expected is an understatement.

I’m going to keep the details to myself (well and to two of my BFFs who I immediately shared his email with), but suffice to say, I’m happy with it. I mean, we’re not together and we’re likely not getting together any time soon, but there was apparently no need for me to feel foolish or silly or pitiful and for the first time since it all started, we are clearly on the same page.

In short, the embers have been relit.

As far as Sparks and I are concerned, there is an Eternal Flame.

And because I know it’s been in your head since you read the title:

Update, Anger & Alchemy (T-Minus 160 Days)

Well I guess this is the new definition of “it’s been awhile.” I think this is probably as long as it’s ever been between entries and I would be very pleased to tell you it’s because I have been quite busy having completely salacious sex with a guy I met while crossing the street.

Alas, that could not be further from the truth.

I carried through on my Sept. 11 promise to do something I had been putting off and I wrote a letter full of things I have wanted to tell someone and never could. This opened up the floodgates and I ended up writing three more letters to people in my past who have been instrumental on making me who I am today – both positively and negatively.

Only one of them got sent.

I decided to reconnect with the man formerly referred to as The Badass. Our breakup was not full of animosity; the timing simply wasn’t right and we eventually grew apart. It happens. Hell, it’s supposed to happen.

I wanted to tell him though how much I appreciated him and, years later, how much I respected his desire for adventure and freedom. He began the quarter-life crisis and the normal time, but instead of letting it fester for years, he took care of it then and figured out his life before he forced himself to become settled in the wrong direction.

Right now, he is my hero.

I eased into conveying all that emotion and took the time to get to know him again over the span of a few emails. We caught up on each other’s families and friends and talked about what we were doing now. We never talked about either’s romantic status, but I expect he is still with the woman who he met while getting over me (his words).

It didn’t really matter though; I eventually told him everything I needed to say and I think we’re at peace enough to continue on, not as friends, but as an old love who is a mere email away. And I feel good about it.

The other letters (i.e. emails) remain in various states of scripting. One is half-written, one is done and has been sitting in my drafts for weeks and the final one was deleted as soon as it was completed. I didn’t even re-read it. It said what I needed to get out, but that’s as far as it is going to go. Some things – people – in life just need to be deleted.

I obviously have not spent the entire last month writing letters though. That took a couple days, tops, and the rest of the time I have no other excuse for except I was simply too angry to write.

I have spent much of the last few weeks in a state of anger I am not familiar with, and not a fan of. I literally woke up in the mornings angry and annoyed about the day ahead and, throughout the course of it, the anger just got worse. I was quick[er] to get upset at other people and I spent the bulk of my time at work either bitching to equally frustrated co-workers or listening to Jay-Z through headphones so loud I’m sure my cubicle neighbors knew all about my 99 Problems. Unless I was with someone in my immediate circle, I wanted to be left alone because everyone else, quite frankly, pissed me off.

During this time, I also found myself finding excuses not to work out and not stick to what I knew I should be eating. All in all, it was a really shitty few weeks.

I finally began to snap out of it when I talked it over with a co-worker/BFF – we’ll call her Rudy because if you knew her, you’d know why – and learned she felt exactly the same way. I think it helped us both to admit the anger and how much we didn’t like feeling that way. Since then, she and I have separately made steps to figure out our new direction.

Our guidebook has become The Alchemist, an allegorical novel by Paulo Coelho first written in Portuguese and published in 1988. Rudy read it and came in raving about her newfound clarity. We all know I can’t resist a book that’s supposed to help decipher life, so I’m about 30 pages in and looking forward to reading more once I’m done writing this.

The book follows the journey of Santiago, a shepherd from Andalusia, who follows a prophetic dream about finding treasure amid the Egyptian pyramids (sidenote: are there other pyramids?). He encounters several people along the way, most notably an old king named Melchizedek who teaches about discovering his personal legend and following all the signs to get there.

This is about as far as I have gotten, but I am sucked in. There’s a part near the beginning when Santiago is talking about his irrational anger directed towards his sheep and that’s all it took. Dude, I got you.

So we’ll see where the book goes and how much I over-invest in it as the means to discovering my happiness.  Yep, I am fully aware of my tendency to do that.

In the meantime, I followed a few signs/cosmic hints/twitter invitations of my own.

I emailed a former boss who now is out in the Portland, Ore., area to give him my resume and asked him to keep me in mind if he heard of any opportunities out there. I also asked a colleague who I know is friends with someone who works at a company out there which I would LOVE to work for to “introduce” us formally (you know, by email).

So I’m taking some steps in the direction I want to be going, quite literally this morning as I went on a 5-mile hilly backcountry hike. The park association “tweeted” about the hike yesterday and I talked myself into going – love the outdoors, but self-conscious about trying new things alone – and I am so glad I did. I felt alive and inspired … and happy.

It helps the weather has been positively gorgeous for the last week and the Indian Summer, coupled with a reasonably light work schedule this weekend, may very well be the source of this happiness, but it’s honestly just a relief to not feel angry.

And now I’m going to go read The Alchemist. I have a personal legend to find.