2019 and I

Near the end of every year, I have a time of personal self reflection and goal setting. It is a definitively honest time for my own self improvement and I love myself for it. As I’ve started to think and feel through this year, here are some highlights —

Tl; Dr - I’m doing well. Really. 

The year started with some unexpected workplace shifts. I had never left a job without another one lined up, but 2019 was the year I did. I had a month of downtime, then was picked up by a management consulting firm where I spent 3 months at 99% work travel. The schedule was packed and the work challenging, but the unexpected part was the level of emotional impact. 

Being completely alone was like living in a personal emotional incubator. Every piece of leftover emotional junk ... from my entire life ... came to the surface during endless hours in planes and cars. 

And, no surprise, I decided to address all of it. I called on advisors, confidants, and friends to sort through deep hurts and joys. Cherished friends and family made it their business to ask - sometimes pointedly - about sleep, food, exercise, etc. The utter exhaustion I felt at the end of that time is inexplicable, but I would never have explored and worked through so much except that I had that time and space to do so. 

I was just at the point of feeling that what I needed to learn during the transition phase had come into place when I was given a great next step. I got a message from a recruiter looking for a candidate who sounded an awful lot like me to take a position localized to my home base. Knowing the high pressure recruiters face to identify candidates (even if nothing more happens), I agreed to a conversation. It went ... way better than expected. I landed in super new job just in time for several pre-scheduled personal travel weekends. 

With all of that, the 6 months between May and November are a blur full of excellent memories. I’m glad to say potential burnout points were seen and handled to keep me from completely collapsing. 

One part of me that I like is that I push myself, but then then I give myself recovery space. The last 2 months of 2019 are *completely travel free* except for Thanksgiving with family and only 4 days at New Year. It will be a good time to reset my home life and reconnect with people. 

Of course, the result of being away more than home is that I’m still finding my way around this place I moved to last August. I am figuring out what kind and how much energy to give different groups. I have connected with individuals, but not to a particular set of people. Maybe that’s what a healthy adult life is. 

I am coming up to 5 years post-divorce and I’ve written a bit about that journey separately so I won’t rehash it here, but a new (big for me) thing this year is that I actually feel emotionally healthy enough for new relationship/connection. I will say that I am not fond of the small talk involved with dating strangers so I’m hoping for someone in similar life space, into similar things, and who thinks I’m cute. If I never have it, I’ll be okay, but now I am healthy enough to know I would be able to appreciate and enjoy it, and open enough to hope for it. For me, actually getting to this level of potential for hope is a big step.

So, yeah! There’s me in 2019 - at least the highlights. Thanks for reading!!!

Home

I’ve just come off an extra long holiday weekend ... during which I spent a lot of time at home. 

I thought about going on a road trip adventure. It would be fun! Explore a new place, meet new people. I even asked several friends for input on where I should go. But then, when it came time to make travel decisions, I didn’t want to leave. 

I have been on a hundred thousand miles of adventures over the past 4 years. At times I wanted to run away from my reality, and planning excursions was my constructed way to safely do so. I needed and enjoyed each one. In a sense, every time I gave myself freedom to explore, I was giving myself more space to live.

But this weekend, each suggestion of a new destination gave me less confidence that leaving is what I wanted to do.

Because at this moment of life, I am a quieter, contented, happy person who thought it may be equally nice to stay home .... then as I thought about being home and as the weekend unfolded, I realized staying here was the better option - not because my home is expertly appointed or a destination, but precisely because it’s not. 

My home is comfortable, cozy, and clean. It has some   cluttered corners and stuff on shelves that really should be donated. I’ve somehow managed to acquire too much furniture. I have pictures of favorite moments and people - some need to be updated or added. It’s the home I created for myself and that I come back to when I’m tired and done with everyone else. I can be happy or sad here without having to explain why. It’s the place that I feel safest and most at peace, and where I am most honest, vulnerable, and open.

I know I’ll run off on some grand adventure in the near future. But for now I’m glad I spent this weekend at home. 

In 2018, I ...

In August 2018, I moved from Jacksonville Florida to Knoxville Tennessee. Here’s how it happened. 

In 2017, I realized that I had journeyed as far as I could into healing from my divorce within the construct I was in. Years before, I had taken a job at the same place as him. We both thoroughly enjoyed our work. But two years post-, we were both still there. We were rarely required to interact, but we would regularly see each other. I also lived within 10 minutes of him.

I struggled to distance myself emotionally and intellectually from someone who, geographically was still there. In order to preserve my sense of security, I had secluded myself, and it wasn’t making me better.  I was sadly alone and utterly exhausted. Seeing that I would remain in constant cycles of sad unless I made drastic changes, I decided I would have to move - and that moving to another part of town or to a different job, or even doing both, was not enough.

So I set about making a plan. I made a list of several cities I had heard of or visited that seemed like places I may want to live.  I then narrowed that list based on research into culture, climate, and community. 

My top 10 cities, in no particular order at the time, became:

1. Knoxville, Tennessee
2. Raleigh, North Carolina
3. Dallas, Texas
4. Atlanta, Georgia
5. New Orleans, Louisiana
6. Washington, DC
7. New York City
8. Tampa, Florida
9. Charleston, South Carolina
10. Savannah, Georgia

In mid-2017, having pared my list to the top 7, now listed in order above, I spent a month road tripping to visit each one. During that trip, I let myself enjoy (or not) the energy wherever I was. I learned about myself and the cities I may move to. That trip narrowed the list to the top 3. I then spent several months asking questions, of many people I know and some I don’t, about their thoughts and experiences with each of my top picks. 

In early December 2017, I had decided that when I moved, Knoxville would become home. I set a general timeline of “sometime in the next couple years”. 

Then February 2018 happened. A series of events prompted me to acknowledge that I had already spent enough time evaluating, and the time was now to actually do. Long ago, I adopted the notion that I can do anything so long as there is a timer. Instead of running out the clock, run at it. My goal became that by August 17 I would no longer be in Jacksonville. So I set my timer, then ran at the clock. 

Thus began an incredibly full self-directed 5 month period. I made several trips to Knoxville (which was 550 miles away) to learn the area and apply for work. I found a new job that would agree to hire me upon my move. I hired a moving company and packed up my home. I wrote changeover documentation for my job and helped to hire my replacement.

On August 8, my furniture was loaded, and on August 10, I left my job of 5 years, and the state I have always lived. I started my new job on August 13. The lease on the apartment I now live in started August 17, and my furnishings arrived August 21. For 10 days I was a guest either in a hotel or some incredible friends’ home. For another 4 days, I slept on an air mattress in my new home.

I am writing this about 100 days later. Because that’s how long it takes to set up housekeeping and figure out new routines, learn a new job and a new city, and become comfortable enough to look backward and see landscape rather than plow relentlessly through checklists. I have started to make friends and have something that loosely resembles routine. I can drive to the places I regularly go without GPS. Today it snowed, which I watched comfortably from my living room window. 

2018 has been one of my favorite years in recent history. Not because it was easy, but because I decided to put myself in a better situation, and then I did.

the deep sad

He was an acquaintance and a friend. I met him six months ago and since then every month or two we would grab a bite or just swap silly memes. He was a military veteran, a devoted dog-owner, and a loving son, sibling, and uncle.

And he was sad. Not just any sad - the deep sad. The sad that someone carries around and that defines their world in ways people who don't have deep sad do not understand and often cannot recognize.

We often talked about the sad, and how he was doing. He was at war with the sad. He was still bargaining with it. He tried to be happy, or at least appear so. Sometimes he felt he was winning the war, other times, not.

We saw a movie last Friday night. It seemed something had changed ... as though he had accepted the sad - had decided that there was no way for him to be, except sad.

On Wednesday he ended his own life.

I do not have any platitude and I seek no sympathy. I just wanted to write about my friend and his deep sad.

Moving Day

It's an exciting day for me! After homesharing for virtually all of my adulthood, I am moving into my own place.

A lot can be said for home sharing. The idea that another person knows your comings and goings, whether and what you eat, whether and when you sleep. The past year was filled with highs and lows, for both my roommate and myself and we each became a constant for the other - a person who, at the end of each day or week, was there to talk or watch junk tv or go for a walk. I needed to have a bridge year and I have thoroughly enjoyed it. I am extremely grateful for the hospitality and fairness of my roommate this past year. She is a good friend :)

But, for me, starting this new chapter is one that is in good timing. I'm ready to relearn how I work separate from another person's clock. I truly enjoy my own company and am now curious to know what I will fill my time with when there's nothing predetermined or already happening in the house. I want to see what my furniture looks like all on its own.

As I sit one last time in my favorite chair (which belongs to my roommate, so I'll have to buy myself one like it), wrapped in my favorite throw (which is mine so it's coming with me), I am humbled and excited by this new venture.

Referring back: Relationships, deep or wide?

This is a first for me ... referring back to a post as though someone may actually have read it and then may read this.

At this stage in my life, I am evaluative (possibly overly so) of every relationship I have. I am careful with my time and even more careful with my heart. I've been broken and am still putting pieces together ... but while I do that, I am still a thinker and I've been thinking a lot about relationships.

In a post from 2011, I asked what builds or kills relationships. I posited that in today's modern society, time and distance are not super relevant to whether a relationship - of any kind - could work and be healthy. Since then I've had a lot of the good and bad of life happen, so I want to readdress the question.

First, I think that distance matters. Absolutely. It takes much more diligent effort to engage with someone who is far away or not in my immediate circle than with someone who is naturally "there."  Also, if loved ones are in a place unreached by modern technology, then yes, again, interaction is much more difficult and/or costly, therefore likely less frequent. 

But, some relationships are worth the effort. If a relationship, again, of any kind (familial, friendly, or romantic), is one that a person wants to keep - or even more, wants to grow or develop - the person will make the time, give the energy, create the space for that relationship to flourish. 

And if it's not, we don't. 

The question I posed in 2011 is still rattling around my head: what makes a person or relationship worth the effort? As I've thought about this ... Yes for four years, I come to the conclusion that I could have just said at the beginning: the criteria are different for everyone.

For me, what makes a relationship worth the effort is the connection with the other person - shared trust, mutuality, love, and respect. If I have real connection with someone, I don't care if they are near or far, I will find the time and space to relate with them in whatever capacity and to the level they are willing and we are both available. The hard part is identifying, before and while investing, where those shared levels of trust, mutuality, love, and respect are ... while also identifying what the other person's connection points are ... all while actually relating, not standing back analyzing what could be as opposed to what simply is.

Test Kitchen

I truly enjoy food - basically everything about food in general - and especially the notion of preparing food ... Cooking. I love the idea that a type of plant or animal can be prepared in such a way that it tastes like something else, or simply tastes like the best version of itself. I like that I can have seemingly endless options for tastes and textures by changing only a few inputs. I enjoy trying foods from cultures different from mine - most of my favorite flavors and dishes are Middle Eastern or European.

Recently I've embarked on a bit of an endeavor to change the types of food I eat. I have basically removed processed and commercially canned food from my diet while purposely adding in a focus on fresh, whole foods. I have also begun purposely avoiding sugar, alcohol, and caffeine. I have found I feel inordinately better when I make healthier food choices ... Which leads to a better mix of lifestyle choices as well. 

My friends are the beneficiaries - at least I hope they view themselves that way - of this new focus on healthy eating. As I have developed my ongoing list of new foods to try they are the sounding board, taste testers and food critics who help me know what plates to keep and which to toss. The test kitchen is open ... This is fun :)

quiet period

This blog has gone through periods of use and non-use. I maintained this writing space throughout my three years in law school, then set it aside during the 2 years that followed, during which Life in the Hoodie was my writing home.  Now picking up again, I hope you have enjoyed the read, and continue to. More to come.

Bruno Mars and me - we're tight.

I was going to write a blog post today, but I simply don't have anything planned to say, and I don't want to put a lot (or any) effort into writing something you may want to read.  Don't get me wrong, I enjoy writing on my blog and I hope a few people read my ramblings ... but today I can relate to Bruno Mars:  I just don't feel like doing anything.

summer love

We're halfway through summer.  While my initial plan included taking 7 hours for credit (yikes!), my world collided headlong with those of registration and financial aid, resulting in taking no classes over June and July.

Only someone with a penchant for self-inflicted misery would be unhappy about an unexpected summer break.  While I was somewhat akimbo for a little while, I have regrouped and am happily enjoying the few short weeks remaining until fall term begins.

This summer, I've taken on a few fun (or simply needed) projects at home, including:

• Reorganizing.  I outfitted an office last year, but I now have space that is clearly for writing/research and a separate (slightly more comfortable) space for reading.
• Cleaning.  Early on my 1L year, I recognized that part of the "give and take" of law school is that it takes all of your time and energy, except the small portion you aggressively take back.  Somehow, in the midst of this time tug-of-war, my windowsills, ceiling fans, and door jams were lost in the crossfire.  They have now been reclaimed.
• Learning.  A good rule of thumb is to learn one new thing every day.  I'm not certain I've achieved that, or anything an 8th grader couldn't have; however, I have spent some quality time learning how to use my kitchen this summer.  I am now at least "proficient" at sauteing, boiling, or baking a wide range of foods.  Never again will I serve raw chicken or too-soft pasta.  And, if you know me, this is quite the accomplishment ...

 So, have you had a good summer?  Only a few weeks left, so enjoy it while you can!