Up and Over It

When Tristan and I started this blog in mid-July, it was because we spent so much time G-chatting to each other about how we wanted our lives to go somewhere, we just figured blogging was a great way to get it all out and let our friends ride along with us. (Lucky you!)

Four and a half months later I'm physically sitting in the same exact spot, but emotionally, mentally, and all over spiritually I have moved leaps and bounds forward.

Around this time last winter I was working a temp job at a huge NPO learning how to do Online Marketing, Development, and manage various other fundraising campaigns. While I enjoyed the position, I knew in the back of my mind that I needed to find something with stability (a girl's got bills to pay!). So I set out on job hunt 2011. Cover letters and resumes flew from fingertips to keyboard. Destination: California. I don't know what got into me, I had never wanted to move to the state the threatens to break loose and sink into the Pacific. I even landed an interview with an amazing organization in San Diego. Ahh San Diego. Great for vacations, but I just can't live there. That was the last position I pursued out of state, and ended up taking a part time office job in Tucson.

Tucson: My layover to a better destination.

I don't regret anything about moving here. It's a great first step for getting back out of my parents' house and into my own place again. It's affordable, friendly, great weather, and I have friends here. However sometime around June I knew my time here was up. After easily a dozen interviews in the Old Pueblo from June to October and zero luck landing anything worthwhile, I stopped with the resumes altogether. 

And then!

The fire under my ass was lit once again. (Bless my friends for yelling at me on a rainy drive, telling me I need to get out of Arizona. They couldn't be more right.) I went on a great vacation that didn't feel like a vacation, but more like home, and I finally.. FINALLY.. found a city I can fully, honestly, seriously, so excitedly see myself moving to and living in. I got home and started sending out resumes once again. This time to LA. 

I know it's super pricey to live out there. And while the jobs are fairly abundant (compared to Phx and Tucson), there are significantly more people applying to them, but I sense it's where I belong. At any rate, I've got two phone interviews already lined up and I am still sending out resumes. My original goal was to be out there by March, but my gut tells me I need to get out there ASAP. My guess is I'll be moving in January and I'm totally stoked about that! I'll be taking nothing but my clothing and necessities and of course my new beach cruiser that's waiting in Phoenix under the Christmas tree.

Mindless Meanderings

• What's with those girls who have a permanent bitchy look plastered on their faces? In photos, in life.. they just look MEAN. I feel sorry for them.
• I am super hungry right now and really want to be eating my peanut butter toast with banana, but I'm not "allowed" to eat at my desk. Everyone else in this office can eat smelly onions and greasy pizza day after day while they work, but I can't have breakfast while I accomplish things because someone (no one) might walk in (they won't). The people I work with are assholes.
• I'm so stoked to pick pumpkins and apples this weekend! I get like a 5 year old when I get to do these things, but honestly, that's one of my favorite qualities about myself: the littlest things get me so excited.
• I have changed my Halloween costume about 26 times, and I think I have to change it again. This is a product of my indecisiveness and unwillingness to spend a lot on a costume. The shirt I bought that was going to be a huge staple of my current costume idea isn't what I thought it was (duh, should have tried it on) so I have to make a last minute change. But I have another fun idea!
• Started thinking seriously about a new tattoo. I've wanted to do a back piece and I'd like to do it within the next year. When I got the first two back there I didn't have intentions of doing anymore, but things have changed. So, now I am challenged with incorporating what I've got into something new and beautiful.
• Why is it freezing cold in this office, always. 
• Everyone in this office seems to think I am some tech guru who not only built the multi-function copier from the ground up, but am also the universal webmaster of every website ever created. Just a newsflash, I know just as much (maybe a wee bit more) about the office equipment and the workings of the internet as you do. Please stop complaining to me when a website is down or you can't figure out how to make a copy.
• I really need to buy a bike. I saw a cheap beach cruiser at Wal Mart. All it needs is a can of spray paint and a cute little basket and I'm ready to rock and roll! I like to walk to do my easy errands, but sometimes I can't since I have too much to carry. Having a bike would be primo: put everything in my little basket and off I go. Additionally, I'd love to just pedal around for some body movin' when my knees are busted (now) and can't run (frustrating).
• I need to repaint my toenails.
• LA weekend vacation in one month! Hopefully my neck and back are feeling healthy by then.. we'd like to go to Magic Mountain. I've only been there once, and the rides I really had my heart set on were both closed. WTF. Dream crushers.
• I need to go out this weekend. I feel like there's nothing worse than sitting at home on a Saturday night and watching TV. At least for me. I need to be out, dancing, having fun, meeting people. I love my friends, but sometimes I hate that I'm the only single one because that means they all want to stay home with each other and that leaves me.. alone.
• I never get homesick, per se, but I'm really itching to get back home. I miss my friends that I left there and I really need to spend some time with them and be reminded of who they make me.
• Something is seriously lacking.

A Little Help From My Friends

I am slowly learning a very hard lesson: I cannot help anyone who cannot help themselves.

It is either my greatest strength or my greatest weakness to want to help those who need it.

I do not always believe I am right. I do not always (or nearly ever) expect my advice to be taken. I certainly know that as adults, and humans, we come to each other for an ear and a shoulder, but will ultimately make our own decisions based on our own feelings, not what our friends and confidants offer us.

But what I am not understanding, and heaven help me I am trying, is how to let something go that I have no control over. It has been a terrible stress lately, probably taking years off my life, that I can feel regularly weighing on my heart. I know that this person whom I love and care about so much, though  they constantly express sadness, can take care of themselves and find their way out. But for some reason I feel it is my duty to reach in and pull them out of the trenches. Part of it is because this situation has indirectly swept me up in its mess, causing me to be the third party. As such, it weighs heavy on me too. Part of it is because I have a strong spiritual connection to this person, which is inexplicable at the very least, but I feel what they feel, similar to what twins experience (I think?). And part of it is simply because I care and I would feel this way for any other person in my life. It is hard to stand by and watch someone make questionable decisions which negatively affect their life and not be able to do anything about it.

I think one of my (our?) biggest struggles in life is relinquishing control of situations such as this and accepting that life will ultimately work itself out. My sadness and stress don't come from me not being able to make their decisions for them, but from me being unable to open their eyes and ears to what I so clearly hear them saying, but they do not take action on. And telling myself that this person is perfectly capable of making their own decisions and that they will be okay is challenging. And thus the lesson I am painfully learning: I cannot help those who cannot (or are not ready to) help themselves.

There is one thing I do know for certain, and it is this: I get by with a little help from my friends. (I wish this person would too).