my, it has been a while. i have not even looked at my reading list in months. as i do it strikes me how the topics that used to consume me hold little interest for me today. it is not so much that i have changed, but moved on. i may not have changed, but my life certainly has.
i am down to weeks, if not days, left in my real estate career. without shame i can say that i failed. no worries though, it was never for me. that admission took six years and a moment of desperation to finally rise to the surface.
i have a new career. each day brings a new host of challenges and worries, but today i saw some growth. sure, it was not perfect but i am okay with how the day went. perfection is an illusion anyway. there is always someone waiting to tell me how i fucked up. the difference in me is that i prepare myself to take the hit, and welcome the hit, rather than try to dodge it. some hits simply cannot be avoided.
out of desperation andria and i each have new careers. hers due to writing on the wall. her old job is destined to be phased out. she had to make a move, but the move she made necessitated that i step up and finally make a meaningful contribution to our life together. i no longer could afford the luxury of someday. hence my move to retail and a time clock. if you told me one year ago i would be in the position i am now, there is no way i would have believed you. no chance in hell.
however, because of that desperation and willingness to leap without a net, and net wove itself beneath us. my career is progressing at breakneck speed. andria just received her employment contract for next year. and we are finally, after nearly seven long years, moving out of her parents' home. we are finally resuming our lives as adults.
occasionally i consider the old me. i wonder if i am still a runner. due to the pace of my life at present, and the commitments i maintain, i have not managed any sort of consistent training regimen. then i run a 5k at a seemingly unreasonable pace and think perhaps i am a runner. then i sneak myself into a ten miler when i have not run that distance in months and push a pace i have no business holding, and i think perhaps i am a runner still.
i do not think i shall ever return to my previous life as a runner. 2:45 am wake-up calls and eight o'clock bedtimes will ruin a runner, especially as summer approaches here in south carolina. but this much i know: i would not trade those four years for anything in the world. i saw things and accomplished things i never even dreamed about. i engaged people and considered ideas in ways that never occurred to me previously.
now, at the mid-point of my life, i finally know the kind of person i am. i may not like everything i am, but i understand how it all came together and how it all works, and how i can make it all work for me.
lastly, i know what makes me happy. she has been with me all along.
i saw a quote today, which i will attribute to a native tennessean now living in los angeles, nobody you would know. he said that while it is nice to acknowledge those folks that happen into your life and shine a light to chase away the darkness, it is far better to embrace those individuals that chose to walk through the darkness with you, hoping to find your light together.
so i guess that is it. until some other time perhaps.
