I know what you’re thinking. Blah, blah, waste of time. That’s what you always say. Famous last words.
But, hey. It takes balls to put it out there that you’re trying to start something whole-heartedly for the umpteenth time. That you’ve failed. Or really, that you’ve failed yourself with your own damn excuses. And yet something tells me you’re intrigued or even glad. I’ve been there; I’m you and you’re me. I’m willing to bet that you wouldn’t be scouring the internet or spending the late night hours (or downtime at work) reading blogs of other people’s thoughts and daily musings on lupus or Paleo or CrossFit or just feeling like you suck at life but knowing that your inner badass isn’t showing as well as it could on the outside if you hadn’t been where I am before.
So let me ramble on…
I was on vacation. The vacation of all vacations. No, not to another continent, not that type of vacay. The kind where I swindle my boss so that she has no option but to let me go and I pack what I can into my car and just drive. Started early, took my dog. Great book title and cover jacket- look it up. All I needed was a place to crash, and a dear friend offered that, and I took it and went with it. Sure, I had a few things on my itinerary: look at neighborhoods to see where I would like to live, look for jobs, apply for jobs, find a place to live, decide what the F^&* I wanted to do next, and just to recuperate my health. I needed every bit of the rest and recuperation in R&R. I just needed some fucking sleep. When your body could sleep for 12 hours a night easily, and you work 12 hour shifts, it doesn’t work. I’m not Mother Theresa or Helen Keller. They had 24 hours in a day, too, yeah I get that. But something tells me they needed at least 1 hour in there to shower, shit, and shave. Bite me. So I did what was on my itinerary. Well, some of it, because I still don’t have a job or a place to live, but I have ideas.
My Partner in Crime, as I’m calling him today, was getting his CrossFit Level 1 certification that weekend, so I was his weekend escort. Congrats to you, sir! I drove around San Antonio for the better part of the weekend eating up gas just trying to get a feel for it. No, I didn’t take pictures of all the missions downtown or the Alamo or the beloved RiverWalk. I almost regret it, because I am complete and happy when I am taking time to get awesome pictures, but I know that I will be able to go back to visit and do all the touristy stuff. When people think of San Antonio they usually think of the one picture of the RiverWalk that they’ve seen and that’s it. Yes, it’s kind of cool, but it’s one part of a city. It’s not even a neighborhood. It’s the equivalent to a street. And it’s a tourist attraction. So what does the rest of the city look like? It’s old. I need to learn Spanish. There are a few cute areas that I saw, but I didn’t get a grasp on how much it costs to live there. I LOVED driving around Helotes and the Hill Country, although you can get that in Austin as well. I miss Austin dearly. I fit in with Austin, and Austin fits me. I can be me in Austin. No, I’m not a hippie, I promise. The rest of Texas thinks that Austin is weird and liberal and hippie and not like the rest of red state conservative big oil Texas. I don’t think all of Austin is that way, and I don’t think Texas is just that. I see many sides to both, and I love all of it. I needed to see if living outside of the Austin bubble was more my speed. Austin is young and hip, and I lived there for a brief stint when I was young and wishing I was more hip, but was I past that? If I’m feeling like I want to settle down lately, or just to take things slower and have a place that is mine all mine, will I feel better or have better job opportunities in another city? I guess that had a lot to do with it, too. Some of the jobs that interest me are more than likely at hospitals in San Antonio. Maybe hospitals in the greater DFW and Houston, but Houston is a no-go with me. My gauge on if I will like an area: coffee shops. If I can find a coffee shop that feels like home, I can usually find everything else I need. In Savannah I live one block (read: walk) from one. My favorites are in the cute squares of the Historic areas. My favorite one in Austin is right on the water so you can drive your boat up and dock it and get morning coffee. If that isn’t Heaven On Earth, I don’t know what is. I looked up independent coffee shops, and eh, not too much stuck out. Yeah, I didn’t investigate too much. And maybe, just maybe, this means I should just end up opening up my own, which I have been secretly pining to do. Why don’t I just do that now you say? Right, like it’s that easy. Shh. Austin has nooks and crannies and independent stores and something new to try. I saw a few areas like that in San Antonio, but not that many. All in all, I could probably learn to like living in San Antonio, because I can like anywhere I live, but it’s no Austin. It’s not a perfect fit, so maybe I’d be itching to move. Probably to San Marcos, which I discovered is closer to Austin than San Antonio. If you’ve ever been on 35, you understand that 30 miles is light years away from something during rush hour. Even on my weekend I wanted to get off the highway and drive on Farm-to-Market and Ranch Roads and just see things. Space. Sky. Water. And I did.
But a few gas tanks and hotel stays later… I needed to drive and park my ass in Midland. To just sit. Cook. Think. Look on the internet for hours and apply for jobs. Get away from everything I know and relax rather than spend energy and money being a tourist. It was the most relaxing two weeks I’d had in a long time. I realized that my Partner in Crime and I could eat a burger for every meal. I think four times I made burgers from either grass-fed beef or bison and served them on top of a salad with some A1 or salsa and guacamole. Eggs and roasted veggies for breakfast. More steak or burgers if we ate out. A few chicken fajita plates. And then… the frozen yogurt bars. The latest, most addicting food fad. Dammit, this shit is Satan for anyone who pines for chocolate and is trying to eat Paleo. It doesn’t help that my Partner in Crime and I have very similar tastes when it comes to food. And our love for chocolate. We make the same sundae when we go to these self-serve frozen yogurt places. We could easily pop a Reese’s Peanut Butter cup in our mouth after every meal, just as a treat. Or as a treat every time we walk by the freezer. Don’t judge. He also likes cookie dough the way that I do. When I’m dancing with Satan and baking cookies or brownies (this should be in past tense not present, right? Fat chance. Nice pun.) sometimes I’d rather eat a few scoops of the dough and call it a day. I’m kind of grossing myself out talking about all this. But hey, he and I influence each other in the best of ways… but sometimes we’re such a bad influence. Partners in Crime. Sigh… it still pisses me off that I can eat this for breakfast and he caves in and has Jumburrito for breakfast “because we’re on vacation” and I’m the one who ends up looking like a Jumburrito and he looks like… well, a CrossFit coach. Anyway, sleep, relaxation, cooking, grocery shopping, a few workouts at CrossFit Midland (legit, check it out), pondering, visiting with friends and family… normal stuff that I just can’t seem to make time for right now in Savannah because all I want to do is catch up on sleep. Or maybe it’s all just in my head. In the end, I took a pause on life, which is what I needed. Did I get any answers? Nope, I just created more questions. Did I feel better about life? Depends what we’re talking about. In the end, I drove back, not sure if I accomplished anything or solved anything, but who cares. I took a time out. I said, hey wait a minute, I need a break, I need to rest, and I need to change the road I’m on. So what if I didn’t land a job yet or sat on my ass for two weeks, I did what I could and what I needed to do for me, and I can restart tomorrow. I can have a Day 1 again. And again. And again. And again. Isn’t that life? And I’m living it.
Today:
Breakfast – 1 Omega-3 egg, ½ cup asparagus, 1 Applegate Organic Turkey Burger patty. Gross. Turkey burgers need spices to make them taste less turkey-gamish. They’re like cardboard patties, but it’s what I had that took the least amount of time to cook. I’m working out of what I already have this week. Vacation took the lot out of my wallet. Coffee with fancy cinnamon from Penzey’s and a touch of vanilla. My saving grace.
Lunch – ehhh, I was still in CrossFit exhaustion calm blah and so I just snacked. Haven’t been feeling myself lately. Too much going on, too much cortisol.
Dinner – still feeling like my craptacular not-self and wanted nothing to do with a lot of carbs or with cooking. That’s how you know when I’m tired or not myself. So I took a pouch of chicken breast (not the best choice, I know, but better than fast food) and added a few olives, sun-dried tomatoes, capers, currants, fennel seed, green goddess spice, and EVOO. It worked. And tasted like a bit of Italy- once you got over the taste of can/pouch chicken. Sometimes you just have to be able to throw some stuff together and deal with it, knowing you’re fueling your body and that not every meal will be four-star, but it gives you something to look forward to and make time for tomorrow! I’m having more coffee so that I can find my bloody mojo and get some shiznit done around here. I know it may screw with my sleep schedule (coming off of nights is also not helping me), but hopefully I can still find sleep with all this exhaustion.
