Alternately titled: The benefits abuse of intra-office chat software
Alternately, alternately titled: Burned the eff out
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Me: I need an effing door today.
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Update: Crap. I mean, shoot! My grandma reads my blog every day now. Hi, Grandma! Love you!
I know there’s a lot to get to around here. I have somewhere around seven hundred (yes, I know) photos still waiting to download and upload and share. And yes, I know, I have stories to tell. Shark stories and beach stories and, well, just island stories in general which, as we all know, are interesting and amusing without even trying. I will get to those, I promise. Really. But I also started back to school this week and because I’m really quite a pain the rear when it comes to carrying my title of Good Super-Anal Student, a lot of my time is spent getting organized and back into the frame of mind that allows me to somehow balance all I take on.
It is really good, though. It’s encouraging to me that though I knew it was in me, this drive and this will to do something new and challenging (that actually has a good possibility to determine the rest of my career) is a reality now. There is nothing wrong with dreaming, of course, but at some point a person has to decide what they can do something about. What dreams they can follow and actually help along. There is nothing like that time (I won’t say moment, because it’s quite longer than a moment) where you realize, first, what you’re good at and, second, that you might just be able to make it into your life.
I know I don’t talk much about school and my career aspirations around here; that’s not an easy thing to do. I’m scared. It’s early. I’m protective. I’m unsure. It’s a little unusual, but that’s me. Throughout my life, I’ve always had varying goals and dreams, like anyone else. I have realistic, short-term ideas like: get a raise. I have had ideas and plans that, with a lot of work, might some day be real. Then I have huge dreams, fantasies even, that are not only impossible, but are sort of my escape from what life really is. For a large majority of my life, I wished and hoped that one day, I’d wake up and things would be different and this huge fantasy might be my actual life. There have been times when I would have traded my current life in like a used car– with little thought of what I was leaving behind and only the images of new to come.
But lately, somewhere around the post-holiday recovery, the island-submersion and subsequent island-withdrawal and the cold shock of the past few days, I have not felt like I needed any huge dream or fantasy at all. Of course, some might argue that being on an island is a fantasy in itself, but it’s more than that. For once, or at least once that I realize, I need nothing more than to follow through with what I’m pursuing. Rather than planning or simply having ideas, I’m doing it. For once, I believe the people that say “do what you love, and the rest will follow.” For once, I don’t want to swap life stories with that other girl that lives in my mind. The thing I look forward to most is staying right here and seeing how this one turns out.
There is really not a “right” way to whine about coming home from days and days of time off. There just isn’t, and believe you me, I would have found them if they existed. I would have found them and used them on my coworkers, friends and classmates today because duuuuuuuude, coming home bites. It is cold. I am tired. I have work. I have school work. I have email, lordie, the email. I have an extra four pounds. I have well, other things I’m not comfortable talking about on the internet but suffice to say the only things in my fridge were baby carrots, snap peas and moldy turkey bacon. Try to make a meal out of that and come out quietly. Just saying.
Duuuuuuuuude, this is tough. I want to download pictures and write about my shark tales. Yes, shark. I would not kid about this. I want to relive it all so I know it wasn’t just a dream. But no, I have to be responsible and read four chapters and post a discussion review by Thursday. Yeah, that wouldn’t be so bad but also? My body is still three hours ahead of schedule. So right now I feel like it’s after 10:00 at night and when I woke up this morning at 3:30 it was just plain rude. There were no confused roosters crowing. There were no bananaquits chirping outside the window. There was no slight, reassuring murr of a ceiling fan. None of that. It was just cold and dark. Duuuuuuuuuude.
Obviously, taking this well is not an option. I have to do all this homework now and get back into a running schedule (hello, Relay, one month away!) and probably another fifty things I can’t think of right now because my brain has not yet been at six thousand feet for a full twenty-four hours. It must be because it’s Monday. Tomorrow will be better. I will not hear the word “tiki” in my head for no apparent reason, right? I will be able to be around people again without driving them crazy talking about how I’m both freezing solid and yet flaking away in the dry air simultaneously. Please, it has to get better.
And, as a totally ridiculous and unexplainable side note: I have been having dreams about someone being pregnant. I’m not sure who, but someone is. Definitely. (And stop, it’s not me.) So if it’s you, congratulations. I will let you know when I find out who is because for some freak reason, I am never wrong about these feelings. It is a gift, I know. Some people can sing like angels and I got the You Are Pregnant premonition. Sweet.
“Just don’t think about it like you normally would. Just feel the direction of the water and go with it.” So went my instructions for being out in some very open, very rough waters two days ago.
As I wear flip flops in January, as I drive on the left, as I schlep a cooler and a chair into the sand at 9:00 a.m. on a Wednesday I am constantly reminded of the benefit of doing things differently than usual. Benefits, I should say. There are so very many.
I have slowed down. I have settled in. I have seen the sun set from the same chair I was sitting in when it rose that morning. I have jogged down roads with hills out to kill me knowing the remedy will be something in the form of pie, or burgers, or a four-thousand-calorie mixed drink. Or all of the above. I have read entire books. I have spent time in the company of friends I do not deserve. I have laughed and rolled my eyes and listened to music with strangers on the beach. There are so very many benefits.
Perhaps, though, the best of all is the reminder. The reminder that these moments that are completely different from the usual are also completely necessary. Contradiction, catalyst, the ying to the yang– call it what you like. It is all necessary. And just as we’d suspect, the other half of the reminder is that though the beach and the sun and the sand are very helpful, we can do this on our own any time. While I don’t think I’ll hop over to the left side of the road when I get home, the rest, I am reminded, are very possible. Just try something a little different; don’t do it like you normally would.
It’s a good thing this reminder came when it did. Instead of being at home in the snow trying in vain to stay awake because it is Friday night , right now I’m sitting on the deck, it’s 10:45 p.m. on a Friday in January, I’m eating cereal straight from the box, I’m about to drift off to the sound of live music from about two miles away and I couldn’t be happier. The next seventy-two hours is going to go way too fast.
While the Internet connection is sufficient, and I do find myself having some time in the early morning and on the occasional evening, it is has just become very difficult for me to remember what a lot of things are right now. Like the Internet. And shoes. This is a poor attempt to explain why I’ve been reading and only occasionally commenting. I’ve been getting work done, though, which is good. (Does sailing count as work? Because if it does than today is going to be so productive.)
Yeah, I sort of hate me a little too.
Lucky me (”lucky” really isn’t the best word, it’s more like “HowTheHeckDoesSomeoneLikeMeGetSoLuckyToHaveWonderfulFriends.” But we’ll be concise.), I am staying here on this island in the home of some friends. Though there are some things about island life that would go in the More-Than-Difficult category, I keep finding reasons why it’s better than anything else.
Now, I’m not really a plant person. Heck, the ones I do grow are just by pure luck. If they get watered, it’s a good day. But these photos above are of my friend’s orchids. Four different kinds (breeds?) of orchid in the house, and that’s not counting what grows outside. And do you know how many times I’ve killed an orchid in Colorado? Like three. And do you know how many people I know that can’t grow them in the dry, cold, brutal desolation of Colorado? Like three hundred.
I know it’s Colorado, and I know it’s not supposed to be tropical. I know I said I don’t care much about plants. But still, IT WOULD BE NICE TO HAVE THE OPTION.
