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.

9/11 Reflections (T-Minus 187 Days)

Like the majority of Americans, I have spent much of this week reflecting back of September 11, 2001, and everything that has happened in the past 10 years. In the last decade, I have occasionally thought back to that day, remembering where I was, what I was wearing and how the events unfolded as they pertained to me.

I was in my sophomore year of college, five minutes outside of Washington, D.C., and had missed several calls from my mom while in class. I couldn’t get back to her, but I moved onto French class until I finally gave into the sinking feeling in my stomach something was wrong and walked back to the dorm.

It was then, while walking in grey sweatpants, my favorite Maryland lacrosse tshirt and flip-flops, my phone rang again and my mom asked me if I had seen the news and when I said no, she told me there had been terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. By this point, it was hours after the fact and by the time I got to a television, the towers were gone, the Pentagon had a gaping hole, a field in Pennsylvania was obliterated and all that was left were seemingly apocalyptic images.

From high points on campus, you could see smoke from the fires at the Pentagon and, as my New York/New Jersey/Connecticut friends heard from family members, the tragedy began to hit closer to home. As a journalism major and current affairs junkie, I spent the next few days watching the news with morbid curiosity.  

This would go on for just over a week until a much smaller, but still devastating, event literally hit home. A tornado ripped through the University of Maryland campus, the first in the DC area in nearly a century, knocking out power, taking down buildings, clearing trees and claiming the lives of two. Selfishly, there were suddenly other things I needed to worry about other than the aftermath of Sept. 11.

Not until this 10-year anniversary, however, did I realize just how much I missed.

I am not ashamed to admit I have been mildly addicted to much of the commemorative programming this week. I have been sucked into shows on National Geographic, History Channel and CNN. I have wept over commercials, musical performances and the national anthem. I don’t even dare listen to “Proud to be an American” or else I will be down for the count.

Anyway, through watching all these shows, I realize how much must have come out during the time I was otherwise occupied. The pieced together timelines, first-hand accounts and sobering realizations as sense began to be made were all new to me. I also was reminded of the patriotism that ensued in the weeks and even years following; a blissful phenomenon all but erased by the economic meltdown and overwhelmingly partisan politics we currently live with.

We are constantly told to never take days for granted and to always tell people who you love how you feel because you never know when you will no longer have the chance. There could be no greater reminder of that than watching the events of Sept. 11 unfold and hearing all the surrounding stories. And so I woke up today, not with grandiose ideas of proclaiming affection or living dangerously, but of simply doing something, anything, I had been putting off.

Because you never know when you will no longer have the chance.

I ended up working the majority of the day, but with just over an hour remaining in the day, I have a letter to write. And tomorrow, a boy to ask out. 

Baby Steps (T-Minus 191 Days)

It was around this time a year ago I learned something very important about myself.

I had been stuck in the weirdly undefined pseudo-relationship with Mr. NDNS (Neither Defined Nor Satisfying if you’re late to this party) for over a year and was pretty much at a loss as to what to do about it. Other than, you know, define it and lose the pseudo, but that would have made too much sense. Anyway, he had apparently had enough of it as well and I heard through the grapevine he had articulated to a mutual friend his realization we needed to talk about the state of our relationship.

So what did I do? I panicked and I slept with someone else.

I had recently reconnected with an old friend who was headed through the area on a road trip and wanted to know if I had any interest in getting together for the night (yes … as in the biblical sense). I had very little intention of saying yes, at least until I was faced with the alternative of actually figuring out my life, and so I found myself agreeing to a late-night Labor Day rendez-vous in a seedy airport hotel.

I had a bit of drive for the booty call, and I passed the time talking to an old friend, trying to explain the thought process behind making the decision to sleep with someone other than the man I had been saying could be The One for months. To be honest, I wish I had recorded it because I’d really like to recall how I made sense of that one.

My friend told me I was being a completely self-destructive idiot and to turn the car around. To go home, go to sleep and wake up the next day ready to face my future. I, however, opted to keep driving and have seedy hotel sex. And then ignore NDNF’s phone call and voicemail the following morning.

I would regret it later, but I deleted the message without even listening. It might have been something completely innocuous, but on the off chance he actually was ready to talk, I guess I just wasn’t ready to hear what he had to say.

As you know, neither one of us would bring it up again. And, after the high of my illicit night died down, I would spend many more months wondering what might have been.

So what is this important lesson?

It is something you have probably inferred by now, but it was the moment I realized I am completely jacked up emotionally. The friend on the phone, who will get his own entry one of these days, told me I have the most severe “daddy issues” of anyone with a completely normal father and family he has ever met.

It’s really easy to disguise commitment-phobia when you have a steady string of men in your life (not always in the biblical sense; I’m not a hussy). I wrote, at some length, about my proclivity for the unattainable back in the July 4 entry on a Declaration of Desired Dependence. It was in this moment a year ago I began exploring and trying to understand the phenomenon and my penchant for the geographically undesirable, selfishly unworthy, romantically unavailable, professionally unethical, aesthetically unachievable and/or unabashedly uninterested.

It's been a long road since.

The jury is still out on whether I found someone that breaks this cycle. Things are still very much undefined and I have to fight my inclination to keep them that way. For now though, I am enjoying the process and have no intention of self-destructing and ruining it with a spontaneous stupid decision.

Baby steps.

Taming the Phlegm. (T-Minus 199 Days)

Warning: This is not a fun post. I still don’t name the new prospect and I use the word phlegm at least three times. Read at your own risk.

I was prepared to make at least one of three grand, sweeping changes when I started this whole groove-finding journey. I fully expected to change states or jobs or form a romantic attachment (or five) during the 500 days, but as of 301 days in, there has not been definitive progress on any of those.

There are, however, a myriad of smaller changes that have been made and even more so that need to be. Among them, tweaking my diet after entirely too many months of ignoring signs and symptoms of a potentially larger problem.

I am honestly not sure the last time I ate a sandwich or bowl of pasta and didn’t go into into a coughing fit immediately after. Or feel pressure in my chest after a meal out or sudden trip through the drive-thru. And, more times than not, when all was said and done I was left with a gross, phlegmy (I really hate that word; it even sounds nasty) feeling after meals.

After analyzing all of this, as of a week and a half ago, I decided to give up gluten. At first I thought it wouldn’t be that big of a deal to go without bread, pasta or even beer, as much as I absolutely, positively love, adore and cherish it. The more research I do, however, the more places I learn it has the tendency to hide out. In addition to binding together grains like wheat, barley and rye, gluten often is used as a stabilizing agent in stuff like salad dressing, ice cream and ketchup, especially in the low-fat varieties I generally opted to buy. It can even be found in toothpaste.

Overwhelming, much?! I mean, I can’t tell you how many times I Google “Is ________ gluten free” a day or look over the list of ingredients in seemingly innocuous foods to find something like “wheat protein” listed. (I’m looking at you, Ben & Jerry’s).

Fortunately, there is a wealth of information out there and, thanks to the library, I have a pile of books on my coffee table like “Gluten-Free Girl” and “The G-Free Diet.”

I feel markedly better in just the last several days, but it has been, and will remain, a process. I think everyone would notice a positive difference if they started eating only vegetables, lean meat, fresh fruit and natural/unprocessed foods. Gone are the low-fat or reduced sugar varieties because I figure if my carbs are limited, I’m going all out on stuff like cheese and dressing and strawberry jam. And it’s so freakin’ good.

I am, quite honestly, not sure giving up all gluten is the solution or that there isn’t something else that still needs to get cut out from my diet. There are still times I get phlegmy (there it is again; sorry) after a meal and I can’t put my finger on what might have set it off. I am 90 percent sure everything I ate for dinner was g-free, but here I am still clearing my throat two hours later.

Giving up gluten just seemed like the trendy thing to do.

If I have learned anything from these books though is the right diet can literally change your life. These women were miserable for years because they ignored what their bodies were trying to tell them and/or didn’t have the resources to interpret what they were saying.

I was shocked at how many side effects of food allergies I exhibit and haven’t been able to figure out the source. If changing the way I eat alleviates the respiratory stuff, eases some of the joint pain, gives some psychological relief and improves the overall quality of life, I would rank it right on up there with forming a romantic attachment (or five).

Until then, I am going to crack open a g-free beer.