fits and starts
I don't have the patience this moment to flip back too many pages in the notebook, but my lifetimeline the past couple years looks like plateau after plateau. I don't know if each one is a bit higher than the next -- let's not carry out a metaphor just for the sake of the metaphor -- just that during each between_gap things sort of spread themselves out, and I'm not quite sure how they'll re-form.
Much of the between_gap time an anxiousness gnaws at me. I'll have this notion of how I think I'd like the next plateau to look, and I find myself very selfconscious of repeating this over and over to people in conversation. The last gap, my elevator pitch was basically:
"I'd like west coast, but just someplace new; not Rochester or Cleveland -- I wanna stick around in the states for awhile, earn a bit of money; a good, interesting software development job: want to bury myself in programming..." And so on.
I guess these notions don't only happen in the gap time. Right now, running along my current plateau, (which didn't turn out so much like I'd planned,) I've devised a new scheme of my direction, and I find myself, again, repeating this in conversation. I don't know whether I'm trying to convince myself or just talking about what's bouncing around in my head, but I'm certainly conscious of a kind of hesitation.
So, to come out with it, I don't know how long this plateau will last, but at the moment I'm trying to forge a kind of lifeness here. In my job, activities, home, and social circles I'm struggling to establish a sphere of -- not influence -- just... being. I want to dig my nails into my work, into Cleveland, into a few different "scenes," and hopefully begin bouncing off more kindred-ilk/folk.
Exertion was today's topic at tonight's Shambhala meeting. Afterward on my run, I passed a gas station, and the thought to check my gauge leaked out of my driver's subconscious. At least I didn't decide to run to Ashtabula where unleaded's only $1.40 per gallon...
comments
Jeff,
This is Chris from Roch., I met you at the webdesign Meetup awhile back.
Your post is right on. I've felt some of the exact same things the last year or so in my life, trying to figure where I want to go and what to do.
Anyways, wanted to say that I enjoyed the post and reading what you've been up to. Looks like you'll be in Cleveland for awhile but when you come back to Roch., shoot me an email.
And tell your friend Dave that I love the House Poon photo on his website. I've thought that name was pretty damn funny but never took a photos of it, so it was awesome to see it on the Internet.
Chris H.
-- Chris Herbert (November 22, 2003 1:41 AM)
Hey Chris, I responded to the post over at your blog:
http://cph19.tripod.com/bin/blog/control.comment?a=render&blog_id=53768&entry_id=148235&u=cph19
-- Jeff Schuler (November 24, 2003 4:41 PM)