Overcoming the Fear of the Journey

I am not quite certain what the theme of this post is. There is so much that I have going through my head, my life, and my dreams that it may seem a bit jumbled. I promise that if you bear with me for a minute something good will come from this. 

(The above picture I took on a sea kayak trip just off the coast of La Paz, Mexico)

"I knew that if I allowed fear to overtake me, my journey was doomed." - Cheryl Strayed "Wild"

There are so many places that I had imagined I would have seen by this point in my life. If you had spoken to me a decade ago as I was graduating from high school I would have informed you that I was basically going to conquer the planet in the next five years. 

So far, just getting a Bachelor Degree seems to be a lofty goal. 

My move to Portland has proven a few things to me:

1) Moving to a city does not mean that I am not still secluded

2) Going back to school does not actually mean that I will magically like it this time around.

3) There is choice in every thing that we do in this life - EVERYTHING

4) When an opportunity presents itself - do not hesitate

5) Moving backwards to be a person you used to be can be extremely damaging, yet moving forward to be a person that you never wanted to be can be just as harmful.

6) At no point should you pay more than $700 to live in a small hotel room.

7) One must leave ones apartment to experience the world when one is trying to conquer it.

8) I am only ever as secluded as I want myself to be

Lessons I have learned - some more than once now - and find that I do not regret my time here in this city, that quite frankly is just a little baby when it comes to having a personality of its own. Going to school here has been fine. If I could get a BS only taking writing classes, and at no point having to take a Shakespeare or poetry class, than this would go much smoother for me. Basically, I just like my writing classes. But those classes have afforded me with a few things that I find invaluable, not only to my craft, but to life in general. 

1) I am fully capable of making this a living - I just am going to have to put my whole being and copious amounts of blood, sweat, and tears into it to do so. 

2) Fiction is a bit like playing the game "two lies and a truth" (the brother game to two truths and a lie). There is truth in the stories I can tell. If I do it right, there will be anything from profound truth that my readers will find stays with them after they are finished, to funny/ light-hearted truths that will get a chuckle, a head nod, and maybe even spark an internet meme. 

3) There is a point at which knowing a character, and engrossing myself in their life is too much. Self experimentation is not always the best way to deepen the connection. 

I recently learned the hard way that my craft has a downside - if I let it. I was in the process of deciding that I was going to take a break from Portland, and feeling a little sorry for myself, and also writing everyday for not only my class but my own personal goal to do so, when I made the decision to do an experiment. In part for research into a story I was writing and in part because, it fed my loneliness and slight depression. I wanted to prove something to myself, even if I was going to be hurt in the end. 

The story I was working on at the time involved a woman living alone in the city (sound familiar?) who is witness to a crime and is kidnapped by the perpetrator. She has minimal contact with people, even her family, and knows that she will not be missed. So, of course she must kick ass and save herself, but when she returns she realizes that the entire time she is gone (which is like a month) not one person noticed her absence or worried about her even in the slightest. The rest of the story is about her going into witness protection while trying to build a life of meaning.

My experiment basically involved me not initiating contact with anyone that I consider close to me. These people mainly consisted of immediate family members and my four best friends. These are the people that I would assume would miss me if anyone snatched me off the street. After the first week of silence I was getting a bit ticked-off. What the hell kind of loved ones are these? That is when I went one farther and decided that I would only answer back to any communication if it was a second phone call. That meant that any emails or texts may as well not have happened. I wanted to know how a true absence would affect my relationship with any of these people. 

I made it a little over two and a half weeks before my friend, Karin, called me. The worst thing is that she only called me because I am staying with her pretty soon when I go to Utah for an old roommates wedding and she wanted to know the exact dates I was planning on flying in and out. There was no concern for my safety, just wanting to know when she needed to get me. 

As you might imagine, this test was a major blow to an already shaky ego. NO ONE would miss me if I disappeared today, until the rent check didn't get sent in and my land lord finally called my next of kin to track me down. 

I have become a victim of my own anti-social shyness. Everyone that I know lives in a different state than I do. I have lived here for six months now and, conscience or not, I have made exactly zero friends. I leave my classes with talking to little or no classmates. I chat politely in my church meetings, leave immediately, go to no extra activities, and lets be honest - I can recognize maybe a handful of them in a setting outside of church, and I know maybe a quarter of those people's names. I spend an awful lot of my free time in my apartment.  I really only leave to go on my jogs, go to Powell's for author events (which is actually something I am really going to miss because they have really good ones here), or am going to school. Part of it is due to me not being able to find a job here, which means I am living off student loans, which means I have no money.

Mostly though, I made a bad choice. I set myself outside of my immediate community, and set up an outside community that is too far away to be more than an encouraging phone call for a few minutes a day.

And it is all my own fault - my choice.

I am always only as alone as I wish to be.

While this was all going down most of my time was then taken up my reading and writing and entirely too much Netflix. I wanted to escape my life, still do a little, and indulged that with more than a few internet searches on places around the world that I want to go... I want to lose myself in, because losing myself in a foreign country seems so much more legitimate than being lost in Portland, OR. The whole time yearning to go, and knowing that I have exactly zero money to get myself there.

Finally, two things happened. First, I realized that if I want to be connected to others, than I have to do the connecting. I am my own responsibility. The more I was thinking and focusing on how alone I was - the more alone I became. I finally pulled myself out of the rut... well, I AM pulling myself out of the rut. Second, I read  a book that has been in my bookshelf for an unknown amount of time. I have no recollection of ever getting this book. I remember meeting the author for a different book she wrote, but not for the one I read. 

The book is called "Wild" by: Cheryl Strayed. It is awesome and inspiring. 

Cheryl lost her mother in her early 20's and part of her healing from that was to hike the Pacific Crest Trail by herself. The Pacific Crest Trail is a trail that goes from the border of Mexico to the border of Canada (it may go a little inside Canada). This appealed to me because I would love to hike the PCT. It is on my bucket list. Her account of her summer trekking from somewhere just before the High Sierra Mountains to the Columbia River that serves as the border between Washington and Oregon was well written and engaging. I read it in just over three sittings. 

I recommend this book to everyone.

The whole time I was reading this I kept asking myself if I could do it. Could I go and backpack across the country by myself? I want to... not sure if I actually could. I would definitely love to do it on with a friend or two. 

The best thing about the book came to me on pg# 51 when she says, "I knew that if I allowed fear to overtake me, my journey was doomed."

There are times that I am reading when things are just so poignant to me. This is something that I think will stay with me for a long time. 

I sometimes wish that that fear that always seems to rear its ugly head when ever I want to go and do the adventures that I want to do would just not come. That I would not think twice about saying yes to. That comfort zone is soooooooo appealing. Fear is the most dangerous thing in this life I think. Fear can block so much truth. It is so worth it to overcome the fear. This life is so full of possibilities that to be bogged down for too long will only foster more fear. 

I am a true believer of the concept of "Like attracts like". I have written about it on here a couple of times. I would say that in this case, the more fear you overcome and work around, the more fearless you will become. But the more you let your fear grow, the more fearful you will be. 

I am here to tell you, that it is my goal, and hope yours now too, to overcome that crippling fear. 

The journey of this life it too precious to squander. We are of infinite potential. I must (We must) set aside the fear.

Exactly Where I Want To Be

(October 1, 2013 - Photo of the Day)

Have you ever looked up from what you were doing to suddenly realize that you were in fact very grateful to be exactly where you were in that moment? To not want to be anywhere else at all? Today I had that feeling. In my ever snaking path of life I find myself in school once again, and at one point I looked up from my walking in the “quad” (for lack of a better word) and could not think of any place I would rather be at that moment then on that path, on my way to class. Which, quite frankly, was a bit of a shock to me after the last few days. It seems like every other way I turn my education is just getting in the way of the rest of my life.

Is it worth it?

Is it REALLY worth it?

This education that I have been drilled to believe that I will be a better person for. That I have convinced myself that I will be smarter, more attractive, better paid and an all-around more productive humane being for having finished.  

In the process of pursuing my education I have moved to Portland, Oregon. It’s a good city. But by no means is it a great one, and I have yet to feel any sort of connection to it. There is a blog, a truly fantastic blog that I love, called “Awash with Wonder” by a woman named Shannon. She recently wrote about her feelings toward San Francisco compared to her current city of Orlando, and the language she seemed to share with San Francisco, that she has been to only a few times – but not with Orlando, where she has lived for years now (the post is called “When a city feels like home” if you are interested). I am feeling a bit like that now. Only I have yet to find my true home. Portland and I definitely do not share a common language. We share a respect for what the other has to offer the other, and a few similar interests that keep us entertained. Unfortunately, Portland is my friend who is my friend because we happen to live in the same neighborhood and know some of the same people, but have no real particular interest in the other.

And then I have moments like today.

I am happy here. I am even involved here. I have no job yet – which may be part of the problem – but for once I have moved somewhere new that did not involve a pre-setup plan and I feel like I have a place here. A self-appointed place, but a place all the same. Portland has given me an outlet for all of the things that I have wanted to try over the years that are just not available in those itsy-bitsy towns I have a habit of living in.

My life so far has been a series of hopeful and sometimes glorious starts, very short middles, and sudden and complete stops so that another tangent can be explored. I am in no way prepared to give up my exploring, and feel like it would be dishonest to myself to do so. This City has given me yet another new start, which to the untrained eye may seem pretty par-for-the-course, but in fact is completely different. In everything that is truly embarrassing, I have to admit that I have put and exceptional amount of laziness into my life. I do not mean that I am an inherently lazy person – I always am trying to do something – but no real effort toward my life as a hole. Now, I have to choose to get up at 7am to be to class so that I may eventually get that degree and have something to show for what I am doing. I am joining groups and making long term commitments here. Ones that I would under no circumstances have joined in any other place before now because I knew a head of time that I would be leaving it all behind in just a few short months.

That translates into a few things happening. Those groups I am joining? They are writing groups, and racing groups, and groups that choose a time to dissect fairy tales. I am going to be signing up for Krav Maga here soon. I am making commitments to things that have always been close to my heart, and I find that I love that. When I first planned on moving here I figured it would be for the 9 months of the school year. Take the summers off, help keep the sanity of a very transient person in a very permanent place. I do not think that that is what will be happening now.

Because if, you haven’t noticed, it is when the insanity is at its peak that you look up and find yourself exactly where you want to be.

I Moved to Portland

I moved to Portland, Oregon this week.

I suppose that it really is not any different than any other move I have done in the past. I am leaving behind everything that is normal for me… again. This time, though, is different. This time I am making the move to enter into “normal” society.

When I say that I left everything that I know behind me, I mean a complete change-not just the same job in a different state.

I uprooted everything. I went through every single box that was in my pile of crap in my parent’s garage. I had to find an apartment myself. I bought a bed. A real bed, not just a blow up bed (which for the record I have slept on an air mattress for as long as nine months straight).

I will be finding a real job that will be expecting me to probably stay longer than a “season”. I will be going to a full load of classes that will further my degree and my hopefully my future income. Because, let’s be honest, I really am only returning to school so I can potentially get paid more in the long run.

None of that was going through my mind in the early hours of Friday the Thirteenth though.

Because when it comes down to it, as much as I detest packing all of my stuff up, I LOVE unpacking it all. Suddenly, it is Christmas again – and I am giving myself all of the presents. I get to re-evaluate my life. See what is important to me, what I started and never finished, I remember things that I should always remember, and remember a few things that are painful to bring up.

In my head there is a truly beautiful video montage that plays all the highlights of the last few weeks with very inspirational music talking about being strong, moving on, and being happy.

You should see it – it is awesome.

In a strange turn of events I had the urge to bake some cookies tonight. A sort of christening I suppose. I walked the two blocks to Safeway, got some cookie dough, and came home and baked them. My apartment smelled fantastic. Like a little homeyness in my new home.

I have quite the project ahead of me. That is for sure.

Did I burn the cookies?

Yes, I did

I choose to not take that as a bad omen for my life here though.

I also chose to move onto an ice cream snack

Ice Cream never lets me down

This is me.. winging it

In my most recent of a series of questionably good decisions - I have moved down to Orem, Utah. To those that know me the best, I hope you can control your laughing. To make this illogical move even better, I moved down here with no where to live and no where to work. I came down to live near a couple friends that will be plunging into the black abyss that most people call marriage.

Some side benefits appear to be that my siblings who live in this state are suddenly very social. Coming from a family in which we all love each other, support each other, and are loyal to each other, we are not particularly social when not in direct proximity to each other. I have one brother who has told me some of the biggest events in his life over text message. Which, for me, was fine; we really had nothing to talk about. He texts me "I'm getting married", I text him "congratulations". He texts me "We're having a baby", I text him "congratulations". Done and done my friends. Now though, I am in on birthdays, and holidays, and Sunday dinners. Something to get used to, but not something bad.

Now all I have to do is find a job. Finding a place to live turned out to be really very simple. After one day of my friend and I looking for places we decided that the apartments we had looked at in the middle of the day with the pools and hut tubs, and weight rooms, and no deposit and two months of free rent was the way to go. So, after two hours of unloading my car, by myself, up two flights of stairs, I had an empty car, and a messy apartment. But, no job.

I admit that I can to this town with a somewhat romanticized view of what would happen. I figured that coming down here like I did, I would find an apartment (which I did) and then maybe a few days later a job. Chalk it up to a few days of rest and relaxation. Well.. now having a week of rest and relaxation I am ready and willing to be right back out in that work force... 9 to 5 or otherwise.

But like I always say... it's always better when you wing it.

Do I Stay or DO I Go Now.....

Well one of the worst things about the way that I have chosen to live my life is that sometimes when I know it is time to move on I don't know where to go. I am not stupid enough to move without a job under my belt in the new place. Yes this does prove to be difficult every once and a while. However, I think that I need at least that little bit of stability. Here. Now though I am stuck. It is the wierdest thing. I have walked away from places that I have a complete life, good lives at that, and here I have no life and can't bring myself to leave. I just wish that I could make up my mind.

It's Time to Go

I knew when I moved here that I would be moving away again in a short time. It suprises me to say that it is now almost to years later and I am just now moving away from my little town that I have lived in, loved in, and grown in. It is sad even more because I know in my heart that I won't ever be coming back here. In a way I am not even sure how I am supposed to be feeling. On the one hand I am so stoked to be getting out of here that I can hardly contain myself and would love to just go home, take four hours to pack, pack my car, say goodbye to the roommate I like, and hit the road. On the other hand this town has become my home, my community. I have friends all over, the checkers at the store know me by name and roommates. I have worked for half the industries here and the chinese restraunt knows my order by heart. I even get a free meal about once a month because I eat there so often. I have a spot I drive to when I need to cry (I hate crying and so therefore only do it in very private places, with two housemates my apartment does not count). I have a trail I go on to think things through and the people at the post office know me. So instead of feeling I have gone neutral. I have done this once or twice in my life and everytime I do it life just becomes a haze and one day I come out and see the world around me. Once I came out of it and lived in a new state.. that was a new expieriance. A little strange. It is more than the places I have here and teh people I know. This is such a transiant place that I never really have the same group of freinds for more than a few months. It is also just so laid back. This is a town to relax in. I think I am tired of relaxing. I need a challenge, a real challenge.