A Lot of Groove Left to Find (T-Plus 90 Days)

I can fully attest to the idea time moves faster the older we get. It has been nearly three months since I turned 30 and I swear it has passed in the blink of an eye. The majority of the time I don’t give it a second thought, unless of course I am being melodramatic about being old or inputting into a cardio machine. (Sidenote: apparently 30-year olds burn more calories than 29-year olds, or least the cross trainer tells me. So bonus.)

If anything, I completely ignored the birthday and spent the first few weeks reverting backwards. Without even realizing it, I found myself getting sucked back into a pseudo-relationship with Mr. NDNS, engaging Sparks in the flirtatious text exchanges and being a passive aggressive as ever with my boss.

I mean, that all is just so 29.

And then an opportunity for change presented itself. My landlord informed me she would be moving back to this fair city and would want her house back, meaning I would need to relocate. I had been talking about leaving for months; maybe this was the time. 

I spent a few weeks in a state which can only be described as panic as I simultaneously searched for jobs thousands of miles away and apartments within a mile radius of where I was. I figured whichever panned out first was the way it was meant to be (for now). Turns out it was the apartment and so I moved 1.2 miles away into a beautiful old building with wood floors that make my knees weak. Or maybe that’s creaking floorboards. Either way, the floors are gorgeous.

I decided then to focus my attention on starting over as much as I could without really going anywhere. With all the moving around I have done since college, I had never taken the opportunity to truly go through what I owned and ask myself whether I wanted it. So I took stock of every piece of furniture, clothing and kitchenware I had, noting what held good memories and what held bad ones; what was giving off good energy and what was sucking out bits of my soul.

In the end, I sold almost every piece of furniture I had ever had sex on (in/under/against/you get the point), writing it off as having bad mojo. As much I hate to admit it, The Asshole was haunting me every time I sat on the couch or worked at my desk (sorry to all my friends who sat at either and now have that mental image).

Moving was an opportunity to downsize. Streamline. Simplify. Which I did, until I had almost nothing substantial left. Except my shoe collection. Of the wood furniture I kept, I stripped it, sanded it and refinished it until it was more beautiful than before and looking much more my style.

No, the metaphor of this is not lost on me.   

I have since bought new furniture to replace the bad mojo pieces and have been having a love affair with my chair and a half/ottoman for the last week. We are one.

It occurred to me somewhere around my second bottle of wine in the new pad, however, that I was doing the opposite of simplifying. I was nesting. I was turning this apartment with the stunning wood floors into something that resembled a home.

With the ink barely dry on a one-year lease though, I had stopped looking at job sites out of respect for my sanity and instead started focusing on trying to appreciate the one I have. In the time since my birthday, I experienced one of the greatest professional thrills of my career, but at the time I didn’t appreciate it.

It wasn’t until I was speaking to a class and someone asked me what makes the hours and headaches of the job worth it and that’s when I knew. I could pinpoint a precise split-second of time and I realized how much the aforementioned experience rejuvenated my desire continue and reminded me how truly lucky I am to go to work with the people and in the place(s) I do. 

My contentment might have been helped along by year-long financing on a couch and bed I have yet to make memories in, but for the first time in a long time, it feels real.

Or at least it did …

Stay tuned. I may be 30, but there is a lot of groove left to find.

The Final Countdown (T-Minus 14 Days)

Welp, it’s two weeks until the big day and I must say I am approaching it with better peace of mind than one might have thought 400-and-some days ago. It may largely be in part to the fact I am once again on the road and will be for most of the next few weeks and therefore really don’t have the time or energy to obsess about it. Or maybe I have in fact reached some level of self acceptance.

Meh, who are we kidding? It’s most likely the former.

Regardless, I have a pivotal moment coming up before the big day. This time next week, plus about four hours, I will know whether Sparks’ and my paths will cross for the third year in a row and to be honest, I am not so sure what I am hoping for. If it doesn’t happen, then I think it’s a clear sign I should shut the door on this whole situation and that would probably be a good thing. Because if we do see each other, it will inevitably lead to drunken makeouts on street corners and strides of pride between hotels in the morning and we’ll be right back to where we were last year.

And I need to be all about forward progress.

So before we reach this critical moment next week, I figured now is as good a time as any to look back and figure out what I have learned about myself in the last 486 days.

·         I like to drink. Probably a little too much. (Though for the record, I haven’t had more than a glass of wine in a week.)

·         I have amazing friends. Seriously the best. And sometimes, all it takes is one crazy long weekend in Vegas to make friends for life and feel like you’ve already known them for a lifetime.

·         I would rather spend a year pining over someone seven hours away than to find take the time, make the effort or risk the result of looking for a relationship which isn’t doomed from the get-go.

·         Baking makes me happy.

·         There is a free spirit in me somewhere and I think it desperately wants to get out. The woman who hasn’t had more than a few days off at one time in over a decade and has put professional advancement before all else doesn’t seem so cool anymore.

·         I am not cut out for online dating.

·         When you fall off your bike, both literally and figuratively, you just have to get up and keep going even if you are unable to finish. Because sometimes it’s OK not to succeed as the lessons learned in failure can go further than those which come from success.

·         I am not Wonder Woman, even if I wear her panties.

I guess that’s a starting point, right?

I got some clarity this week from an old friend who I hadn’t spoken to in probably a couple years. On the heels of ending a four-year relationship, he got drunk and fell into a state of self-loathing I know well, channeling it into writing me an email apologizing for being such a shitty friend. I reached out a few days later with tales of my own shitty friend-ness and we caught up on everything we had going on.

Among other things, I told him about the blog; about my goal to find my groove in 500 days and he just laughed and said “If you figure out your life in 500 days, let me know the secret. I think it should take closer to 500 years." I sincerely hope that isn’t the case, but it can probably be assumed it will not happen in the next 14 days.

And that’s OK.

Have Itch. Will Travel (T-Minus 20 (!!!!) Days)

You guessed it; I’m on the road again. I am actually in one of the few cool cities I get to travel to for work, but it’s cold and rainy outside and I really just don’t feel like boozing it up on a Tuesday night. So instead I am in an abandoned banquet room in the far reaches of the ninth floor daydreaming about other places.

My reading list of late has been full of travel memoirs – all vaguely similar, but yet so completely different. Yes, each one is about a young single woman (or a few of them) who decides to throw everything else away to travel in an effort to find themselves before facing some big obstacle – turning 30, graduation, getting over a relationship or simply being at peace.

Following The Lost Girls, which I have already wholeheartedly endorsed here, I turned to The Good Girl’s Guide to Getting Lost and have Wanderlust waiting in my Nook queue , while adding countless other my Goodreads “to read” list. The trend is so evident one of my friends sent me a message just to make sure I wasn’t planning to run off to the Congo any time soon.

I hadn’t thought about, but this doesn’t look so bad. Maybe I’ll add it to my list.

One of the common threads between the women in these books is an already deep-seeded love and appreciation for travel and adventure. Now I would like to think I am in the process of developing both, but it has been a long time coming and I have not come by it naturally.

My family did not do adventure growing up and we definitely did not do exotic travel. When I went to France with a group of classmates in high school, I was the first person in my family to get a passport. I was a junior in high school and it was just the second time I had been on an airplane. We also never appreciated what we had in our own backyard – I grew up 25 minutes from the beach and it was not until I could drive myself and later when I dated a surf instructor in college (The Badass) did I begin to revel in the ocean’s majesty.

Yes, I said majesty. Get over it.

My point is I did not grow up with the notion travel – and more so stepping out of one’s comfort zone – are necessary parts of life and I kind of resent that a little bit. My mother is very cautious and a kid has no choice but to absorb those reactions to things like heights, bridges, driving fast, oceans, planes, etc., and it has taken me a long time to realize I want to face all of those things with reckless abandon.

It’s a bit overwhelming to face at this point in life a—to learn all these ~ing skills and embrace the life they fit into.  

But I am trying.

Because if my life is for rent and I don’t learn to buy, I deserve nothing more than I get because nothing I have is truly mine.

Sound familiar?

I had my iPod on shuffle the other day and Dido’s “Life for Rent” came on and it stopped me in my tracks and I had to listen again. And again. I remember getting the CD in college and reveling in this song, but it speaks to me a little differently now.

I haven't ever really found a place that I call home

I never stick around quite long enough to make it

I apologize once again I'm not in love

But it's not as if I mind

that your heart ain't exactly breaking

It's just a thought, only a thought

But if my life is for rent and I don't learn to buy

Well I deserve nothing more than I get

‘Cause nothing I have is truly mine

I've always thought

that I would love to live by the sea

To travel the world alone

and live more simply

I have no idea what's happened to that dream

‘Cause there's really nothing left here to stop me

It's just a thought, only a thought

But if my life is for rent and I don't learn to buy

Well I deserve nothing more than I get

‘Cause nothing I have is truly mine

If my life is for rent and I don't learn to buy

Well I deserve nothing more than I get

‘Cause nothing I have is truly mine

While my heart is a shield and I won't let it down

While I am so afraid to fail so I won't even try

Well how can I say I'm alive

If my life is for rent and I don't learn to buy

Well I deserve nothing more than I get

‘Cause nothing I have is truly mine

If my life is for rent and I don't learn to buy

Well I deserve nothing more than I get

‘Cause nothing I have is truly mine

Sound familiar?

It’s taking all I have not to run off to the Congo tomorrow. Or in 20 days. With my bag of travel books and the desire to write one of my own. With this in my head:

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 -