clean slates

As I sit to write this it's a little past 10pm.  I just took a shower and have that "warm and cozy" feeling permeating me.  There's a cold glass of eggnog on the coffee table, the room is lit by the glow of my freshly decorated Christmas tree, and outside?  Well, outside it's snowing.

I've always found a little magic in the first snowfall.  It seems so foreign to see the world swathed in pure white fluff even if it is for a short time (or longer, depending on the temperatures of days that will follow).  Foreign, yet familiar in that this is essentially what I've grown up with.  Since I was 11, months on end of snow and cold weather every year save for the blip of Austin.  The snow eventually turns gray and then brown, either the roads mucking it up or dirt from the lawn absorbing into it.  But right now it's white, and it's clean, and it's magical.

Last week I was down in Austin for my brother Josh's wedding where I was fortunate enough to be the best man as well.  In a lot of ways I was looking forward to this trip and in several more I was dreading it.  A wedding itself is a joyous occasion and with all of the people involved it was sure to be.  The little cloud above it was that this was coming during a very busy time of year for me, coincidentally hot on the heels of a corporate visit to my store, and of course best of all: a reminder that my engagement ended in a fiery wreck.

The reception area

When Josh asked me to be his best man it was something I agreed to without question.  It's just what you do, and I was happy to go along with it and everything it entailed.  That being said I was also freshly heartbroken and nervous about surrounding myself with someone else's divine happiness.  Never one to wallow in self-pity I of course shoved these thoughts to the side (as I am prone to doing when it's time to focus), but they were still there.  I knew I'd be giving a speech at the wedding, and took my time over the following months drafting something I felt appropriate for the occasion.  The podium I set myself on when it comes to these things is a little high, but I've never not delivered on it.

As such, here's a video of the speech, and if you're so inclined I've included the actual words below.

*  *  *

Speeches… y’know I’ve gotta get this out of the way right now because if I don’t it’s a whole thing later. I’ve given enough of these things to say without a doubt that when I start to cry (note that I said when and not if,) you are all encouraged to laugh and that’ll push me right along.  Anyway, I’m Sean Parker, the Best Man, and I’ve got something to say.

So… speeches!  I’m fortunate to have spoken at a few of these things, sharing my words at the weddings of my three best friends.  I told stories of how we met, the unyielding love and respect we have for each other, the hopes and wishes I have for them… all that.  But those speeches were for my friends.  What is it that you say at the wedding of a person you’ve known since birth?  A person you watched learn the tough lessons, one who paved the path for you in so many ways?  We choose our friends, so tonight… what do you say about a guy you really just… got stuck with?

A lot of people go into these with the intent of a roast but I’ve never been a fan of that.  I’ll take it too far, Josh’ll end up crying, it’s best to just avoid it.  I’m lucky enough to be the best man at my big brother’s wedding and I don’t take it lightly.  Do I share embarrassing stories about you getting caught burning your action figures in your bedroom when you were 16, or that time you got busted fishing for cars?  When you tried to scare me wearing a Boba Fett helmet and I knocked you unconscious?  I mean… hold out a bag of mortifying things and this guy hovers in droves near the top.

Anyway, let’s talk about movies!  And I know what you’re thinking... how are there so many tall people in this wedding party?  But I want to talk about movies.  The anatomy of a movie is pretty basic, you have a beginning with strong roots to establish the story, a middle with some “filler” to build up the story, and then an ending that hopefully reaches some sort of climactic and emotional payoff.

Here’s a beginning.  Josh and I grew up in a movie house. If we weren’t watching them on VHS as a family unit, or going to Rainbow Theater to see them on the big screen, we were making them.  Josh in particular.  We made all sorts of movies!  One where Josh saved a princess and wished upon a shooting star for a magical glove.  One where our sister Megan turned into a murderer because of an experimental drug our father made for headaches.  And a sequel to Home Alone, naturally, where young me got to “pee” on a burglar with a turkey baster.  But this was us.  Coming up with stories and tales to share with maybe not necessarily the masses, but each other. Those evolved into short stories for Josh and I on paper, and then eventually Josh tried writing a book from one of his ideas called “Hero.” Did you know that?  It’s true.  I actually published three books of my own but we don’t need to talk about that.  Though if you’re feeling spendy tonight you can buy them right through Amazon.

Our childhoods were made up by creating a narrative that would keep us entertained and enthusiastic about our lives.  There were no smart phones and time on the Nintendo was limited by our parents so we resorted to make believe.   And since we just lived for movies, we applied movies to our lives... picturing scenes in our minds that we could play out.  Or later in life, even finding ourselves in moments that seemed to have been taken from the silver screen itself.  That was us.  That still is us.  Searching and hunting for the romance or the drama, the suspense and laughter that comes in a daily routine.

This is a founding pillar of Josh and I, it’s what we’ve always had in common.  That love of a scene... the theatricality behind the online meeting of two strangers to an eventual proposal amidst thousands of paper lanterns in the middle of a field as they were lit and sent to the sky.  Always fans of the theatrics.

Here’s a middle.  When I first met Anne, it was in Austin and she and Josh had only been dating for a couple weeks.  I was in a new relationship at the time as well, so Josh and I got to meet our significant others at the same time, which was truly special.  I think the two of us grew up at different times and in different places, but somehow we managed to meet up again at the same stage in life.  Josh and I seemed to be going through everything together, sharing the firsts as they happened and bouncing ideas and thoughts and problems off each other in the process.  A few months after that meeting, Anne did something that cemented my opinion of her: she flew me down to Austin to surprise Josh for his birthday.  And guys, it was his 37^th birthday, so like… who cares, right?  But Anne did.  The fact that she wanted to fly me down was astounding for two reasons.  Firstly, I’d only ever known Josh to be the one to do sweeping romantic gestures.  Secondly, she had already come to learn the most important thing about a big bad former marine: he’s a total crybaby. 

It was a well choreographed event that had us meeting up in kayak’s on a river with him not having a single clue, and it was perfect.  It was Anne, in a nutshell.  Planning something to a perfect T and getting to enjoy the fruits of her labor.  I was able to spend time with them alone on that trip, and what was remarkable was how much Josh had changed in those few short months since I had first met her.  I suppose since he had first met her, as well.  I figured (and knew) Anne was a truly special person, especially to have… what’s the word I’m looking for… “whipped” Josh into shape?

A few years ago, someone told me that my family was a cold family.  It struck me, because I’d certainly never thought of us that way.  We’re not overly affectionate,  sure, but cold?  This stayed with me for a long time, something I went back to semi-frequently with Josh and our sister Megan.  But as the years have gone on and I’ve gotten a little older, I can’t help but look at us in a different light.  We may not hug and kiss every time we see each other like some families, but we know what we mean to one another.  We’re there when we’re needed, always just a phone call away.  When we aren’t needed, for better or worse, we keep our distance.  Sometimes the things on the surface might seem warm and cozy but I find it’s when you look a little deeper that you find the true warmth and the real love.

The Parker’s come from a long lineage of all sorts of artists.  Painters, illustrators and writers.  Some published books of artwork, some mastered watercolors, several mastered instruments, and one in particular can bake any damn cake you could possibly imagine.  But Josh, you and I tell our stories through different mediums.  You communicate your truth with your art, I write mine through my words, and we still move in tandem creating stories.  I think these last few years you’ve been setting the stage for your own movie, and now you and Anne get to take the reigns of the leading characters.  Tonight is a strong emotional piece, but it’s certainly the end of your movie.  My relationship didn't work out, but yours did.  I am so proud of you, and I am eternally happy for you and your success in finding love.  And to Anne, as the self-proclaimed PR person to this particular clan and the one that talks the most, I formally welcome you into the Parker family.

In the end, we have the families that we are born into and we have the families that we choose, and I find there’s always a little magic in combinations of the two.  So let us raise a toast to Josh and Anne.   May your film blaze new trails, may the scenes and perfect moments continue to flow, and may you never retread the footsteps that have already been walked.  That’s called plagiarism.  Cheers! 

*  *  *

There is one line in this speech that was written in the first draft and made it all the way through the end, one I recited with every practice round of the speech.  Eight simple words, really just a sentence with a happy ending.  Eight easy words, themselves a statement of fact.  Eight words that I just could not bring myself to speak out loud.

"My relationship didn't work out, but yours did."

It isn't that I was afraid to say it in the speech, and it wasn't that I accidentally skipped over them.  They weren't to convey jealousy or anger, bitterness or anything unsavory.  That's not how I feel about the situation.  There's a 50/50 chance for everybody in life and love, and when the dice shook out it came down to two brothers, both very much alike, and one of them lost at love while the other found victory.  That being said, it was when I got to those words that everything rose up around me in this cloud I didn't realize could even possibly or remotely still have a chance of being there.  In that small infinitesimal moment, everything that was supposed to happen for Derek and I flashed before my eyes.  The week preceding this, filled with small thoughts and hidden moments behind my eyes, seemed to come to life before me.  It showed what I wasn't going to get to enjoy.  Not now, maybe not ever.

Certainly not for a very long time.

My best friends giving speeches at my own wedding, holding glasses high in cheers for a toast.  My wedding in general and how it would have looked.  The promise of love and laughter and joy that comes with a union of two souls.  The doubts flashed in my eyes, the hurt and pain and general humiliation of what I went through this year.  The counseling.  The tears.  For the first time I found myself unable to say words that would still give him some sort of dominion in my life.  I find this fact has less and less to do with Derek and more to do with me truly wanting to move on.

We broke up very shortly before the invitation to this wedding arrived so really I've been bracing myself for five months before I'd have to deal with it.  I am a person filled with self-doubt, it is an ugly and underlying feature of Sean Parker.  I know what I am capable of and rarely do I actually let myself down, but the road to fulfillment is plagued with doubt in my abilities and fears in not succeeding.  This is a common theme that is discussed in counseling and something I am actively working toward pushing down.

In my most recent session, she told me what's amazing about me is how even in the face of chaos and disaster in my personal and work life, I still present this polished, comfortable and confident front.  She asked me how it is that I do this, and I couldn't come up with any better of a response but "because I have to."  For me personally it has never been a question of doubting myself; it has always been a question of others doubting me.  And as I have proven in the past, when others doubt me I only work harder to prove them wrong.  It's like that thing with siblings or a best friend... you say shitty things to them and push them around (all in good fun), but the instant someone else does it?  Watch the fuck out.

I figure in my case, presenting a polished front eases doubts in people.  If you look like you have it together, then maybe you do have it together.  This in turn decreases the probing questions from people.  Particularly at a wedding, when they try not to look at you in concern and you thus make it easier for them by repeatedly joking about being single and your love life continuing to glow in the fiery embers of the bomb that went off.  I'm only partially kidding, but if you can't laugh you cry so let's move on.

The wedding was like the final act of my year.  It capped everything off in a tidy conclusion, and when I came home I felt like something had shifted in me.  Not quite yet tangible, but still there.  I'm sure it'll take me this month to put it together but I'm alright with that.  I just need to keep processing.

In the end, the wedding was beautiful and I was fine.  I delivered a heartfelt speech in which I meant every word, and I got to see my brother shining with true happiness.  The corporate jet trip came to my store and we not only passed in flying colors but I continued to develop my professional standing and general relationship with the CEO and other VIP's in my company.  It was arguably the most difficult two weeks of the year, everything building up to it as the sort of "climax" before hopefully calming down through December.  But maybe that's what 2017 has been about?  Dealing with every difficult thing you possibly could and coming out on top?

Start the year (literally New Years Eve) finding out a parent has cancer, discover your fiancé hooked up with someone on Craigslist, the resulting blown apart relationship, changes and stresses of work that lead up to a "do or die" moment, then face the wedding of someone you love very much and try to bury your own shit in the process.  Do most of it on your own while figuring out how to afford your life without any additional income and see what it does to you as a person!

A first snowfall in so many ways feels like the first page of a clean slate, after all.  It buries the past if you let it.  It wasn't a bad thing that I was forced into finding my truth again after losing it so long ago.  It also wasn't so bad to learn how to be lonely again.  Loneliness isn't so bad, really... if anything it allows you to look forward to seeing the people and places that you miss so dearly that much more.  And while I doubted myself in my ability to do all of this, and while I didn't think my breathing would get easier, and while I didn't see any end to the persistent pain and sadness in my heart... I did do it.

I made it through, I persevered, and I proved that most elusive person wrong: me.

Outside all of that, and just for now... it really is just me, a purring little boy-cat pressed against my thigh, a sleeping girl-cat behind my head on the sofa, and the wind as it hits the living room windows and rattles the garlands hanging from the roof.  And of course that fresh snow.

Ciao for now.

traditions

I wasn't going to decorate this year.  For anything, be it October or December.

All things considered, the point in doing so seemed a little bit lost to me.  While I adore Halloween with a passion that rivals my love for my own parents (...), this year I haven't been feeling much in the spirit.  I had my costume decided on of course because that needs to be taken care of before August ends.  And I had my plans in store for what I'd be doing, but everything else?  Figured I'd pass.

I've always been a "go big or go home" kind of guy and decorating for things is no exception.  Unless it's the 4th of July, in which case, like... no.  But Halloween and Christmas?  Absolutely!  While Christmas decorating is a little more intense with the amount of greenery, berries, plastic ornaments to fill clear vases, a gigantic tree and all the lights, Halloween is almost as just.  Spooky cloth and skull lanterns, lots of pumpkins and general creepiness.  So to DO all of that takes time, and effort, and commitment.  And I've been lacking the last two.

Anyway.

The other day I was outside chopping the hostas down to nothing (because screw them, right?  Pretty for like two weeks when they're flowering and then they just take over and serve as homes for spiders.  And rabbits that scare the shit out of me when I'm mowing and go streaking out from the leafy cover, but I digress.) and throwing them into the yard to mulch up with the mower.

I mentioned in a video recently how I was concerned about my neighbor, Ray.  He's the nicest man, and I'll tell anyone the same that'll listen to me.  The day I moved in he came walking across the yard to introduce himself (he'd just pulled into his driveway, so it wasn't like... he'd been watching out the window and came running at the sign of the Budget Truck).  We chatted briefly and have randomly since.  He brought treats over for Christmas and I did the same, saying at the time that his wife made them and I kinda scoffed internally because I'd never seen her before.  I assumed he was an older gay man and just pretending.

Flash forward to this September.  I was kinda caught up with my own life but had noticed over the summer that Ray wasn't really taking care of his lawn.  Now this is a man who mowed his lawn twice a week, sometimes three times a week, and was always outside trimming and maintaining and doing all the things.  So naturally it wasn't hard to notice something had changed, and flat-out I just hadn't been seeing him.  One day when I was mowing the lawn I noticed a bunch of cars outside and people making their way to the house wearing suits and dark dresses.  I assumed the worst.

Back to the hostas.

I was attacking them with reckless abandon and looked up briefly because the garage door next door was opening up.  Ray walked out and waved at me, and I have to admit I was relieved to see him.  So I pulled out my earbuds and we started to chat.  He was quick to tell me his wife had passed away in September from cancer, "so I'm alone now," and my heart just about broke.  We continued to chat and I discovered some more details about his life, that as newlyweds he and his wife purchased the house a year after it was built in 1964.  They raised all five of their children in it, put small additions on (a sun room and the garage), but that it was largely unchanged.  He explained that all five kids live within 20 miles, and combined he has 10 grandchildren from them.

I felt comfortable telling him I was alone now, too.  That it was a different circumstance but how I understood the general feeling.  He sort of nodded and said he was sorry.  He must have known we were "together," even though we never frolicked in the backyard holding hands or anything super gay like that.  But he knew.

Then Ray asked me if I was going to put my Halloween decorations outside like I had last year.  "I really enjoyed seeing those... no one ever decorated over there before."  And without hesitation I said yes, and that I would be putting them out that same day.  So we said goodbye and he drove off with his sister that had come over to visit, and I walked down to the basement and pulled all of the totes of Halloween stuff out, grabbed 20 strands of lights and set to work.

While I know it's not too late to make myself happy, I haven't really been wanting to.  But for Ray?  For someone who went through a much harder loss than I did and could maybe find a simple pleasure from a few lights and cobwebs?  I can do that.  I am happy to do that.  This also got my mind spinning on other creative things to do.

So with that I got my mind cooking on the next multiples video and how I want to start producing them more frequently.  They cheer me up, give me an outlet, and allow me to play around with makeup in one form or another.  Especially this time.

I keep everything for Halloween.  A lot of it I really should toss at this point because it's gotten kind of junky, but for better or worse I still have it.  Maybe because as a child there was no greater thrill than opening up a box mom got down from storage and seeing all of the familiar and spooky things from the year before?  So I keep it all.  I also keep all of my costumes, even the bad ones.  I polled Facebook for what costumes I should break out of storage for this next video, aptly titled "Halloween Party," and here are the winners: Superman, Winifred Sanderson, Dr. Frank'n'Furter, Paulette Bonafonte, and Nicole.

Doing this required a lot of makeup, a lot of time, and a lot of planning.  Facial hair is one thing; five eventual faces of makeup is another.  Frank'n'Furter had to be a standalone paint job.  Paulette had to be a standalone paint job.  For Winifred I had to glue down all of the hair on my chest, come it outward, and set it with powder and foundation (because the FUCK if am I shaving it off (didn't quite turn out how I wanted but whatever)).  The good thing about Winifred Sanderson is that she actually doesn't have eyebrows.  So for the face I only had to wipe off the lips, refill them, add extra eyeshadow and then brows.  Done!  And for the final look, well... you can see it above.

I think when Halloween wraps this year it'll have just been a slightly "off" year for me.  I still decorated in a small way, it cheered me up a bit to do so, and hopefully it made Ray smile to come home and see the house lit up in orange, purple and green.  Halloween night I'll get the fog machine out and some creepy music to play through a crack in the garage door, and I'll do my usual tradition of chili all day long while carving pumpkins and watching movies.

Because I do love Halloween.  I love the feeling that comes with it, the finality it seems to bring of the warm months being officially over and kicking off the final "ugly" stage of fall as it leads into beautiful winter.  I want to recognize it and celebrate it and do whatever I feel willing to do.  I was afraid as the day drew closer that I'd be feeling more down in the dumps.  No one to carve pumpkins with, no one to make said chili with, no one to watch movies and hand out candy with.  Then it kind of struck me.

Those were my traditions.

I started those when I moved out, some of them had continued on from my childhood, but all the same.  They were mine.  Why did I think I needed a boyfriend to be with me for them?  That's just bullshit no matter how you look at it.  Ya did it before, do it again.  So I did.

Traditions done the right way; with the guy who created them.

I woke up this morning and started the chili, listening to Halloween music as I chopped onions and got out the crock pot.  I enjoyed my coffee, watched Strangers Things 2, and sat with the cats.  Got an idea for a multiples picture, did all that, and then ran to the store for champagne to make a cider cocktail tonight.  I can't say I'll feel the same way for Thanksgiving, but who knows?  I shudder to think I'd say the same thing for Christmas or my birthday.  Maybe I'll get a tree and do all the lights.  Fill my vases with cranberries and snow, gather up the garland and string it around the house.  I don't know yet.  What I do know is how that's the funny thing about traditions.

When they go bad, you can always make new ones.  If they were never bad traditions before and really aren't still?  You can keep doing them.  People come and go, circumstances change and ebb... and maybe I'm starting to change too.  It's a little early still, but like the finality Halloween brings to fall and the traditions that are ingrained in my heart, it's there.  Just need to start reaching out for it.

Happy Halloween gang (c:

seventh iteration

I'm looking through the panes of a huge window right now, broken up by metal grids.  Outside it's 70 degrees and there are a dozen people sitting on a deck enjoying coffee and conversation.  An old couple; he has curly white hair and a bald spot on the crown of his head, she is holding his hand and staring absently at the traffic.  Two young girls; both in yoga clothes though I doubt they just came from yoga, messy buns and drape shoulder tops, and absorbed in their cell phones.  A table of apparently old friends in their 30's; they're vaguely hipsters, all wear wedding bands, and one has a teeny tiny little baby girl in her arms.  All of these people are at different points in life, all of them have a story, and I can't help but wonder what those stories are and maybe also why.  How'd they get here?  Where were they before, where are they going next?  I wonder this of myself too.

Frequently I feel that time passes slowly if it passes at all.  The day to day trivial nature of my life has at times felt stagnant and if it was moving, it was moving at a glacial pace.  Conversely, I've written about how quickly time can seem to pass us by without our notice, sort of a blink and you miss it type deal.  Not this last year... not for me.  Like water through a crack in the dam it does pass, and I now find myself facing the seventh iteration of this blog after what feels like a lifetime of waiting.

So without further adieu, I give you the announcement of the day:

THE SIX YEAR ANNIVERSARY FOR 

MUSINGS OF A 

SELF-PROCLAIMED AUTHOR

It's funny for me to look back at six years of blog posts and see where I've been, what my story was and why.  Moments of the past are easy to forget for most people but for me I've essentially been writing a guidebook to my life.  I have the luxury of walking backward through time and reading about all sorts of things.  Moments of panic, moments of lust, and moments of anger.  Times of laughter and times of joy and of course a few times of sadness.  I can see where inspiration struck, I can see where jealousy took hold, and I can see the benefits that came with a job well done.

The "iteration" blogs are peppered through all of that, the roadside markers of my half-written life, and they give me a little bit of guidance if not a little introspection.

When I wrote the sixth iteration a year ago I spent a lot of time mourning over the boo-hoo nature that came with living in Texas and how great living back in the north was going to be (which it largely has been).  You could argue how moving to Austin was an attempt to leave my comfort zone for something new and daring, and moving north was getting back not necessarily to said comfort zone but a place where I could progress the most.

2016 in large was spent white-knuckling the steering wheel of life.  My own reality was absolutely shooting past the windows at 100 miles per hour through changes in jobs, locations I worked and lived in, and the people around me.  After moving to Minneapolis and writing the sixth iteration, I wanted to wrap the year by slowing it all way the hell down.  Then I could follow with a 2017 where I'd preferably be able to focus my attention on (as I wrote back then) a "return to form."

Admittedly when I look back on the last year I do see the benefit of a life where time passes slowly.  The slow passage of time allows for plenty of moments to look at your surroundings and truly see clearly into what is good and what isn't.  If you're paying attention... as I was... seeing things clearly allows for tremendous change.  Life cannot always move at such a breakneck pace because if it does, or rather if it is, you're not present enough to notice what's going on around you.

Looking back at the sixth iteration it's with a certain anguish in my throat that I read how I wanted to "return to form" and get back to my roots.  Some of you know how I tend to put things out to the universe, my idle thoughts and hopes, only to see them become self-fulfilling prophecies in one way or another.  Only now as the year wraps do I see how this particular prophecy came to fruition.

A return to form with the blog meant going back to what started "musings" in the first place: heartbreak.

I think for Derek and I, everything was just always moving so fast.  Quick to say I love you, quick to move in together, quick to move across the country together... quick to move across the country again together.  It was only when things slowed down that we started to relax and look at our lives.  What'll make us happy?  What steps do we take to get there?  So on and so forth.  That's when the problems crept in.  Through hindsight I realize moving so fast kept the problems in a blurry state; I couldn't focus on them because they weren't huge, and they weren't very severe in relation to everything else that was going on.

They were always there though, and it was certainly easier to just ignore them.  I think that's true for many things in life, don't you?  It's often easier not to deal with the white elephant in the room; it's standing quietly in the corner not doing anything, why make a big deal about it?  The trouble with that is how the big white elephant starts to break the floorboards under it's weight, splintering and cracking the foundation until eventually it erodes beneath you as well.  Not the best analogy but you catch my drift.

You put out into the world what you want to get back and I got it back.  Not that I'm some crystal-ball wielding gypsy or that I can predict lotto numbers, but I tend to search for meaning in things any way I can.  In this one I found meaning quite simply.  Doesn't make me happy necessarily, but it does bring a little bit of contentment.  If that makes sense?

All this makes me look at the future with a different perspective.  One component of a return to form came about by writing through Blogger again and not a website I never fully understood or took advantage of.  Another component came in working to write solid blogs that told a story from the heart, not just fluff to get something out (i.e. monthly updates).  I have to remind myself how sometimes it's only better to speak when you can improve the silence, even though my every instinct is to just talk and talk forever.

I rewatched 26 Golden Things a few nights ago.  I'd been messing around on Youtube and stumbled across a song I'd used in the video.  Immediately I knew I needed to find one of the DVD's and put it in to watch.  First and foremost there was a lot of crying, lemme get that out of the way right now.  Tears shed over the movie in the past came about as a sort of lament for how things used to be.  "Look how much fun you were having!  Look how happy everyone was!  Why can't it be like that now?  What had to change?  Why can't you just try harder?"  I do that to myself often... blame myself for not trying harder.  As if to say I don't try hard enough on a daily basis which isn't a fair observation.

This time, unlike any other since I made the film, was different.  There was a familiar draw, I suppose, for lack of a better word.  It's easy to forget why I made the movie in the first place.  I think on the surface 26 Golden Things came across as "I have a bucket list and I'm gonna spend lots of money to do all the things!" but I really only did it because I was adrift in my life.

Confusion over who I was, what I was doing, why I was doing it... all brought about because of a breakup that disrupted my life story.  Not a breakup, but really the breakup, the one that would end up defining who I'd later become.  Me filming my life for a year didn't even start when it was supposed to, it began at the end of January in a split-second decision.  "I'm going to do this."  I'd been single for 9 months, went through a brief relationship that burned out way too fast, and ultimately decided I didn't want to find love again anytime soon.  With that decision came the first item on the list of 26 things and it was #1 - Letting it die: the realization you are finally over your ex.

I can look at 26 Golden Things now as a roadmap to eventual success.  Make a list, start crossing things off.  Involve your friends.  Involve your family.  Acknowledge the challenges, don't shy away from tears.  Be open and be direct and go after the things you want because each step you take forward will only put the past further into just that: the past.

Take what happened and learn from it, grow from it, and be better because of it.

I'm not over Derek yet, and no I'm not going to try to recreate 26 Golden Things this next year as... what... 32 Semi-Tired and Usually Cranky Things?  But I am going to do something.  I'm not sure exactly what form it will take yet but my plans are evolving and coming together and that's a step in the right direction, isn't it?  To have hope for something?  Maybe I'll announce it in the New Year's blog, maybe I won't.  Maybe I'll show up in 365 days and shout out loud in the eighth iteration "hey, look at this neat thing I did and guess what else, I'm happy!"

Happy.  I write it like it's some elusive thing right now, which in many ways it is.  I feel like I can get back to "happy," as if it were a destination, at the drop of a hat.  I also feel like it's at the end of a hallway that keeps getting longer and longer.  But like I said before, sometimes all it takes is putting it out there and then it comes back to me.  Maybe not how I anticipated, and maybe only in hindsight does it smack me in the face, but it does come back.  I think focusing on myself for a year, uncovering what makes me tick and what drives my passion, can only be a good thing for this iteration.  And while I'm at it, I might as well address that sometimes it takes a long while to make your millions, but sometimes it happens over night.

Never hurts to throw that anecdote out to the ether.

Last year for the music video component of this blog I posted one by the band Lucius for their song "Dusty Trails," choosing to focus on the lyric "we'll all be okay."  Listening to that song today I can't help but focus instead on a different lyric: "painful as growing is, we can't forget it's our ticket to taking the reins."  I'd like to take the reins again, I think.  I'm ready to be in charge again and start thinking for myself again.  I assume only good can come from it, but that is something only time and this next year can tell me.  The key is being open and mindful... and if you have the privilege of a slow-running life as I currently do, then it also just takes a little bit more presence.

This year it is "Crystals" by Of Monsters and Men.  The lyrics that speak to me are "But I'm okay in see-through skin, I forgive what is within.  'Cause I'm in this house, I'm in this home, all my time."  It's best with the volume turned way up, in my humble opinion.

That's all I've got for you with this iteration, thank you for reading and listening and a hundred thousand other things you have no idea about.  Thank you.

Ciao for now (c;

new ends and old beginnings

I woke up very early yesterday.  Earlier than I needed to, at least.  The sun wasn't up yet; I didn't have to work until 10.  I'd planned on Derek coming home for one final night before moving out, but he didn't.  No text or anything, of course... just didn't come home.  And as I have a habit of doing, I went to sleep very late worrying about him.  That's all I ever do is worry, to an extent where sleep seems like an afterthought.  When I woke up, I stared out the window as the sky washed from inky blue to a dull grey and onward with the warm colors.  Eventually I got up and looked around the house as if I'd find him there, arms open for the hug I needed.  He's a good hugger.

I walked into his office, mostly cleared out save for the furniture and clothes in the closet.  I stared at the shirts hanging there, the jacket and sweaters, and I pulled the sleeve of one to my nose to see if it smelled like him.  I was surprised that it did... something I never really noticed until that moment.  Clean, safe, and warm.  It was with a little irony that I was pulling an Annette Bening in American Beauty, subsequently breaking down into tears as I gathered the long sleeves and held them to my face.  Memories, as if in a flood, came back to me.  Watching movies on the couch, holding hands on walks through the neighborhood.  Laughter.  So much laughter.

It was the first and last time I'd do this in my own house.  The last time I'd have to worry about where he was or why he wasn't texting me back.  The last time I'd leave for work and take a glance around the kitchen, seeing his shoes on the floor or a pile of clothes in the corner of the office.  Whenever I'd be getting home from work that night, it would all be gone.  Finished, like us.  Three years worth of lessons ultimately ending in one that I keep having to re-learn:

There are some walls you can push through and some you just can't.

I remember the first night I said I love you to Derek.  We'd made a blanket "nest" in the living room to spend a quiet evening at my apartment, moving through the Marvel movie universe and getting ready to watch Thor.  It was December 23rd, 2014.  This spot on the floor wasn't comfortable; the carpeting in the apartment was cheap and not plush by any means, and we were leaning against the base of my leather armchair that kept sliding backward toward the wall so there was a lot of shuffling to stay in the right spot.  After the movie we wrestled with each other and tickled for a bit, as you do when you're in that honeymoon phase, and then I was in a position on top of him and looking down into his green eyes.

Infinite and beautiful and squinting with his gentle smile.

They just came out from between my lips, the words I could no longer keep at bay: "I love you."  Barely more than a month in and I was head over heels.

In the beginning you don't think about the end.  At least, I don't hope you think about the end.  I certainly didn't.  You don't think about tearstained goodbyes and the general nature of being broken.  Broken ideas, broken dreams, broken plans, broken hopes, and certainly not a broken heart.  You forget about the times that came before and how you got through them.  You forget what it's like to be hurt and how bad of a sting betrayal comes attached to.

For that small... infinitesimal moment... it was just the two of us, those green eyes, and the wonder of if he loved me too or not.

Maybe you already guessed that he did love me, but that's because you probably already know this story.  I know I've told it a couple times now so beyond those moments it doesn't bear repeating.

I sometimes wonder if I'm not worth the truth.  With Ken all I ever wanted (re: demanded) and screamed about was "why?"  Why did you do this to me?  Why did you do this to us?  Why do I deserve this?  Why did I have to kiss with my eyes shut so tight?  That part of being cheated on, then and now, hasn't really changed.  It is a part of my reality and one I still keep with me for better or worse.  Six and a half years ago Ken couldn't answer those questions, he always said he "didn't know."  Maybe because he was scared to just tell me the truth?  Maybe because he knew I was too scared to hear it.  It was two and a half years later I got the truth out of him and when I finally did it just didn't matter anymore.

What was done was done, there was no undoing it.  And if you could... would you even want to?   It was how we grew from who we were into who we would eventually be.  Or at least who I would eventually be, as it were.  It was the catalyst behind 26 Golden Things.  It forced me to examine my life and who I was, right along with who I had been and who I wanted to be.  Admittedly there was a lot of self-discovery through that golden year I could not have anticipated, but if the ends justify the means then go for it.

With Derek I have a lot more anger.  A large chunk directed at myself because that's what I'm good at, the rest aimed straight at him where it belongs.  I insisted to my friends and family he was so mature, whether they themselves told me so after meeting him or not.  It just oozed off his persona right from the beginning.  It was what drew me to him and I suppose in a way, I had to share that with everyone in an attempt to justify dating someone five years younger than me.  I don't know.  Not that five years is a big deal, it isn't.

Mature or not, and like the broken record of my life song, Derek couldn't give me a reason in the end either.  "I don't know" was all I got.  It wasn't enough... not back then, not now.  "I don't know" is a cheap way to escape any sort of revelation for me and for him.  The result of "I don't know" leaves me feeling like I am grasping at thin air even though he's right in front of me.  And I'm still grasping, three months into whatever lackluster "healing" process I've attempted to provide myself.  I don't deserve that.  It's not what I earned.

I think I earned an answer as to why I have to start over again?  Why I've failed in love again?  And if it can't come from someone I once thought was so mature but was really just a child all along, who does it come from?  Not my friends, not my family... not even me; it has to come from him.  Reason has to come in some form eventually.  In the past I've found it when I searched hard enough, but for this situation it can't really come from anything or anyone else.  This time it is absolute.

There is also a certain degree of cowardice that comes with this.  He hurt me... broke me... but can't face me?  That's the mark of a coward.  I write books and the occasional blog and I have a talent of expressing my emotions to an unusually lengthy and open extent.  Maybe I've never been unfortunate enough to have my words fail me... but because he doesn't write books, he feels he has nothing to say.  Coward.  Come at me.  Fight me.

Use whatever little words you think you have and let me know why you had to do it.  Why you had to go online, then to that apartment, across the country, on that day, and meet a stranger to do exactly what you did.  Tell me why it was worth it as long as you didn't get caught.  You can't tell me?  You're a coward.  I don't want to hear that this wasn't what you wanted.  That you never intended for this to happen.  No shit, me neither.  Rather than give me what I need, rather than set my mind at ease by lighting it up with a revelation or putting it to bed with a sad truth, you choose to veer away into the land of "I don't know."  Well fuck I don't know.

Tell me I wasn't enough.  Tell me I was too much.  Don't tell me you don't know.

"I don't know" is a disservice to the work and dedication and energy I put into this.  It discredits my passion and my love and my joy.  It makes three years of laughter invalid, it tears apart the foundations and truths that I clearly took for granted.  "I don't know" is acid in the well of emotions I have for him, and like any effective poison it quickly takes over.  Soon the only memories of him will be the bitter ones, and that's not what I wanted.  I know it's not what he wanted.  But here we are and there he goes.

I was commended from the beginning on how I handled all of this: calm, cool and collected.  That was on the outside.  Inside?  I was roaring.  I was full of panic and rage and fear over everything that happened.  That I was having to deal with this again, and that in and of itself is a pain I don't know how to describe.  Some people understood this.  They were great about letting me know they were available, without pushing too much to talk when I wasn't in the mood.  That's the thing about hurts like this, it hovers like a storm cloud that really doesn't want to blow away.  They knew I'd come to them when I was ready.

Others that should have, just... didn't.  That kinda hurt too.  I can't blame people for not knowing how to handle a friend or family member in a situation such as this, it wouldn't be fair for me to do so.  I've never had a friend really go through this so I can't say I'd be the sage of wisdom either.  We act how we think we should act, and it's on me (or whoever) to be honest about that and let people know what they need.

I've started seeing a therapist.  Not something I'm overjoyed to admit but as my rule has been from day one of this blog... I wrote it, I won't delete it.  You, dear reader, get the joy of an unfiltered stream of thought.  Talking on the phone does not do anything for me.  I'm a personable guy, I gain clarity through talking to people and looking into their eyes, feeling a connection on a deeper level than just words.  I need in-person interactions to feel like I am making some sort of progress.

It's early with therapy.  Though I was anticipating the question, when she asked me "so what is it that brings you to seek counseling, Sean?  What are you hoping to gain from this?" it took the breath out of me.  I could feel the tears build in my eyes in an instant, warranted or not, and I shook my head.  "I went through a difficult break up this summer, in a similar scenario that I dealt with once before... and this time I don't feel like I can find solid ground."  That's the truth.  I don't want to resort to medication, and that's not to knock it for anyone that does take medication for mental illness.  I just don't want it.  I want to talk, but I fear talking isn't enough this time.

You might be asking why?

Well, because I forgot how to exist in the proximity of a person that once moved when I moved.  I'd sigh and he'd know what I was sighing for, usually laughing at my sighs with a heartfelt guffaw that set me soaring.  I'd mumble something in the grocery store and he'd go running to grab it, five aisles down.  There was this ebb and flow that came with Derek and I and we just worked.  We worked.  I knew it, he knew it, you all knew it.  After it ended, that spark deteriorated.  Eventually I got to a point where I was uncomfortable in any state of manner... clothed or naked, happy or sad, feeling sexy or feeling fat, it was all the same.  I felt how every word that left my lips sounded dumb, that I sounded dumb, and that I was simply reliving the deeds of the past over and over again on repeat like some insane carnival ride I just couldn't get off of.  Because that is my mind right now, spinning freely and too fast and so furious that I feel like the wheels could break off at any moment and go careening into the darkness.

I could ask 'why' until infinity ends.  I could wonder about the 'what if's' until the sun burns out.  In so many ways, this is breaking up all over again.  Confronting the issues one more time for good measure and reliving every moment.  Reliving it as if it didn't stab me deep enough in the heart when I was awoken from a dead sleep at 1am to be told I'd been cheated on.

It's enough to make me never want to go to sleep again.

It hurts like I thought it would.  In the end I wanted a clean break but it took me a while to realize it.  I don't think he wanted that, as evidenced by backing out of an agreed meeting last night where I could see him one last time and give him a goodbye letter I spent a month writing.  I didn't ask for much in all of this, I wasn't as awful as maybe I should have been, so to not have my final request honored feels cheap.  I assume it's a scary thing for him to face me knowing that afterward I'm going to cut him from my life, and I get that.  He knows I'm good at doing that and how I tend to not go back on things when I've made up my mind.

I imagined seeing him last night, saying a few nice things and handing him the letter.  Touching his cheek, taking one last kiss, and watching him drive away while I tried to keep a stiff upper lip.  I wouldn't watch him drive away with hate in my heart because while yes, I am angry, I'm angry at the situation.  Not him.  How stupid is that?  It was his fault.  This happened because of what he did and still, I'm only angry because someone I loved so much would be backing out of my driveway and joining the ranks of those that came before him.  Entering the gallery of people that did me wrong, which was a place I never thought I'd have to send him to.  But I didn't get the ending I wanted, in more ways than one, and I should just get used to it by now.  I wonder if I should still give him the letter or just slide it into the trash and let it be what it is?  Tired words after a failed relationship; hopeless words that still struggle to find reason.

You can't spend three years with a person, almost tied at the hip the entire duration, and then feel nothing when you banish them to exile.  It's impossible to not feel like a part of me goes with him, and not just a small part, but something substantial.  I can't say I thought we'd be together forever.  I can't say our love would have been undying and absolute if this deed never transpired.  But I can say I didn't want it to end like this.  Pain and suffering are universal feelings, one person's grief is no more and no less than anyone else's, and no grief trumps another.  So if you've been hurt before, you can at least imagine how I feel.

It's easy for people to say "it's about time he moved out!" or "finally he's gone!" but it's not like that for me.  Because if he's gone, that means I'm alone.  That means I have to start trudging forward without my best friend and companion.  Without the person I could say anything to at any given time and know there would be no judgement for my words.  You can say "you deserve so much better!" or "it's his loss!" but it's my loss as well.  A loss in love, in partnership, in friendship.  And again, it goes back to being alone.  And I've never felt so alone in my life.

Once again I'm the one left waxing sentiment over a rose-tinted past.  Glorifying it, immortalizing it, and ultimately being left by myself in it.  And I get it, I was the one that asked him to move out.  That's doesn't change things.  I've always been the "champion for change" but what a bummer that I'm not sure how to change anymore.  Do we just get too set in our ways as we get older?  I have to believe we do.  People say "he'll see, the grass isn't greener on the other side!" Well so what if it isn't?  Should I feel better about that?  If the grass isn't greener on the other side, I'm still left standing in what... kinda dead grass?  Couple patches of bare dirt with some old, weird toy from the neighbor kids that got bleached in the sunlight?  Hard pass.

Today is Monday, the start of a new week, and really the start of a new life.  Another beginning.  You'd think I'm great at starting over by this point but I'm not.  I'll say I'm adequate at it.  I know what I need to do: keep breathing and put one foot in front of the other, but it's all of the other moments that get to me.

It's fall now and my favorite season.  Fall for me is watching the leaves turn on the trees, the warm air steadily growing colder, the cool breezes swiftly bringing a bite, and the feeling of cozying up indoors under a blanket with a good book.  Right now it's painful to look at the trees and see the beauty, to feel the romance and know that for now I do so on my own.  The cool breeze and cold air bring a bite much more harsh than I'm willing to endure right now.  And those cozy feelings indoors under a blanket?  They're spent staring out the window and wondering what I could have done different.

Maybe if I'd tried harder in some areas... maybe if I backed off in others.  Maybe none of that would have made an ounce of difference.  I've been here before and I made it out the other side.  That's the good thing about old beginnings, it's a path that might have new scenery but the trail is still the same.  What I do know is that this is another new start, and while I may only be adequate, I know how to do it.  So here I go.  Steady breathing, one foot in front of the other, and moving forward.

Today is day one.

four seasons to a dozen months

In this moment right now, as I open my laptop at a local coffee shop, I am watching two groups of individuals, most of which are not actually hipsters.  One group has matching Macbooks and clearly works for some company that requires them all to wear a red polos, and the other group is huddled at the big table over blueprints; I find a tremendous feeling of thanks washing over me.  Thanks that something has worked out for me.  Maybe not in the way I thought it would, and maybe not in the way I'd have wanted, but it somehow worked out.  I woke up this morning and flipped through my Timehop, surprised that the first picture to show up was the "Welcome to Minnesota!" state marker, meaning that today is one year of living in the land of 10,000 lakes.

An empty truck and a full house.

I've always found time to be such an interesting thing.  Misery can make it crawl by, happiness can make it speed forward, and the rest leaves you caught somewhere in between.  I've experienced all speeds this past year, but I suppose an overall feeling of happiness made it go zipping by.  It's hard for me to realize it's truly been a year since pulling into the driveway and walking into my house, checking out the shoddy paint job and thinking I had been misled in the video tour of the place.  There was a weird smell, everything felt sticky, and there was a man laying tile in the basement that had flooded a few weeks prior.  Not the best first impression, but it was going to be home.

It was a fresh start.  It was a new start, a second chance at "getting it right" after moving away from home 11 months earlier.  There's a weird transient feeling that comes along with not staying in one place for a full year, and I had this feeling full-tilt.  I can only liken it to a sort of disorientation.  A week ago I had to call to change something with my health insurance and they needed me to verify my address, which was still listed as Texas.  For the life of me I could not remember what it had been down there, and ended up having to google it to jog my memory.

That's why you don't move cross country twice in less than a year.  I'm not saying... I'm just saying.

A chill in the air, some rain, and a solitary dried leaf mark fall's arrival.

I started back up with Pottery Barn and spent the first month sort of licking my wounds.  I was in my old position, square one, and wondering if that's all I was ever meant to do.  Getting comfortable again at a place of work whilst making new friends and allies and trying to find your footing while making your way in a city you've only been to twice in your life is... something.  Don't want to say it's miserable because it isn't, but it's also not the opposite of that.  It's a struggle.  You end up being more mentally worn down than you'd at first believe, and stressed constantly.  Worried about perception and people's thoughts of you, how you don't want to be too firm on your views at work while in the same instance knowing you need to assert yourself just enough.  It's a game of emotions and in the end I came out of it just fine, but going in was daunting.

One of the silent aspects of the move north came in the form of weather, or rather, the seasons.  I'm the first to admit I never thought weather played such a significant role in my life, and until moving to Austin this held true.  But Austin is a place where there is no fall and winter is just a big fat joke.  Spring was nice, admittedly, and then summer comes back and your skin wants to melt off but it can't because it's too swollen from humidity and Satan's laughter.  Here in Minnesota you have a place where, much like Wisconsin, the seasons are all quite different.  Arriving at this point in the summer I knew fall was just around the corner, and being my favorite season I knew it was going to start perking me up.

And it did, surprise of surprises.

There's something to be said about sitting outside in the early morning with a cup of coffee and watching fog as it lists through the trees in the backyards.  Not necessarily cold outside, but certainly not warm.  The day is filled with soft winds that rattle the drying leaves, a particular silence from kids back in school, and the crispness that promises such colder days.  I'm consistently a warm person so the cold doesn't really bother me; Elsa and I have that in common.

A snowy field of trees to capture the moment of the season.

Work was stressful as it tends to be, but there was an ease that came with it as well.  I got along great with the staff and had fun when I went in for my shifts, looking forward to them once more.  The Holiday season was upon us and like the yuletide joy it brings I was better.  Happy.  I'd had time to reflect on the year before, foolishly writing about having lost my voice and finding it again.  It wasn't foolish in the moment to say that, of course, because I believed it.  I had to believe it.  I had to feel there was some sort of control coming back to me even if in hindsight it really wasn't.

Love life, work life, personal life; these are the blocks we juggle on a daily basis.

I was incredibly focused on my work life in the fall and winter.  Acting GM again, trying to turn things around in the store and make my mark on it at the same time.  All this while not letting myself get burnt out and angry, letting go of the things I couldn't control and being "off" when I wasn't required to be "on."  That's one block.

I was incredibly focused on my personal life.  Making myself happy by starting to bake and cook again, getting back into writing my books and developing the creative side of my personality.  Painting projects and at-home projects, flexing what you can really only describe as a mental-muscle and hoping it continues to grow stronger.  That's a second block to juggle.

I was not focused on my love life.  Well... that's not correct, because I was; I was obsessed with figuring out why it wasn't easy, I just didn't know how to unravel it for inspection and so it kept crumbling.  I'd mentioned in a couple blogs that Derek and I had our issues.  They started in Texas, persisted through our tenure, and then unfortunately followed us to Minneapolis as problems tend to do.  I took things for granted and assumed they would just repair themselves as the other pieces of my life came into better focus, but they didn't.  And just because this had been a happy coincidence in my past, I think that piece of luck doesn't really exist for me any more.  The "ignore it 'til it's better" piece.

In January I tried breaking up with Derek.  I actually tried twice, for two consecutive weeks.  I've never written that before... and it's odd to admit it now that we really are done.  But that's where my head was at.  I was tired of trying to "fix" it, and that's not a fair word but it's the only one I have.  I'm a textbook example of an ENFJ, and it goes along with my personality type that I am overly idealistic, too sensitive, and that I struggle to make tough decisions.  Trying to break up with someone essentially out of the blue is a very difficult thing to do, especially when you aren't 100% convinced it is what you should be doing.  What if it was the wrong choice?  What if I was making a huge mistake?  I knew how I felt, I knew how it was eroding my mind, but what if my gut was wrong?

In my mind I had weighed the pro's and con's and to me it seemed to make sense.  I couldn't fix "us" with the usual ease I find in situations with other people, and after trying to half-ass it for more than a year and not seeing success I was turned off to it.  He pleaded for another chance, promising to change certain things I had always had a problem with about his persona, and I agreed.  And I'd be remiss to not say things got better, because they did.  Somewhat quickly.  I helped where I could, writing daily affirmations for more than a month on the bathroom mirror to build his confidence up and hopefully have something that would strike a chord in getting him to feel passionate about his life.  He didn't ask me to do this, I took it upon myself because to me maybe it would also help my own thought process.  And then that third block, the one of my love life, started getting juggled with the others once more.

When he proposed two months later on our vacation to Punta Cana, it just made sense for me to say yes.  It was a loaded yes, because I didn't feel we had reached an ideal relationship status yet, but it was still a yes and a promise of hope to greater things to come.

A few buds add credence to the arrival of spring.

Spring came with these new feelings of lightness and love, and the cold of winter gradually fell away.  The sun came out for longer hours, green popped up on the bushes, and I was reminded what is so great about living in the north.  You appreciate each season so much for what it is, enjoying the respective positives and negatives.  Fall for it's beautiful but deceptive lighting, as it may look hot outside but in reality it's a weird mix of hot/cold and you always end up wearing the wrong thing.  Winter for the lovely snow and heart-warming ideas of hot chocolate and cozy afternoons under a thick blanket, and then bitter-fucking-cold and ugly black/brown snow in the gutters.

With spring you realize you've made it through the hardest five months of the year and that it can only get better.  Of course, it did.  Work was good, I'd started writing Episode IV again so personal life was good, and my love life was good.  Spring was pretty uneventful, as it tends to be when you aren't sure if you want to be outside or if you think "nah, I'mma watch a movie instead," but it was still full of hope for the days of summer on swift approach.

The hours of sunlight continued to get longer, hotter, and unfortunately more humid.  You hit the summer solstice, a bittersweet day of realizing "it's all downhill from here," and then ironically a week later the shit actually does hit the proverbial fan.  I got sick, an affair was revealed, and then my engagement was over.  That block of my love life so happily soaring with the other two?  Well it hit the ground, tumbled away from my feet, and now rests in a corner on the wood floor.  Probably with some tumbleweeds of cat hair.

Sometimes I feel like it wouldn't be my life if there wasn't something going wrong.  A heavy thought, but a true one.  No one ever really has it all and if they say they do, they're lying.  Something can always be better.  Something can always make you more content.

July was a hard month, and like the summer solstice preceding it, a bittersweet one.  As my relationship ended and the months of doubt became justified and subsequently locked away, my career reached a new height and took off.  But it was still a hard month.  Rushes of sadness in my gut, confusion over what I want, and still a persistent pain in my throat when I think about where it went awry.

But I did try, didn't I?

I may not have given my all, and maybe I should have... and maybe it wouldn't have mattered anyway.  When someone asks for a second chance and you give it to them, is that all that is required of you?  Do certain things happen for a reason regardless of chances?  I have to believe they do.  If I hadn't moved to Austin, I wouldn't have moved to Minneapolis.  If I hadn't met Derek, I don't think I would have even moved to Austin.  If I hadn't given him a second chance, I wouldn't have been cheated on.  Sometimes life's just unfair and there is no way around it, though I like to think there is knowledge in the hurt.

You learn in your failures, right?  It might be the better way to do something, or it might be the way to never do something again.  You might realize that the city you held in such high regard really wasn't that special.  You might realize the man you loved is just a stranger with a known name.  Every time you fail you add another link to the chain of your armor.  But you still learn, and the day I stop learning will be the day I die.  You're never too old or too wise to not learn a lesson no matter how small.

Downtown view from the Minneapolis Institute of Art

Tomorrow morning I will fly to Scottsdale, Arizona for the annual Williams-Sonoma Inc. Leadership Conference, and it's the first time I've ever been invited as a perk that comes with my new title of General Manager.  I will be with my peers, meeting the heads of the company and everyone involved with making us tick as a corporation, and to put it mildly I'm really excited for it.  A year ago today I wouldn't have said I'd be going to this.  A year ago I thought I'd probably be with a new company, or even back in Appleton, still licking my wounds.  But time goes on, you keep your head down, and you juggle the pieces of your life until they make sense again.  And while I've lost one of those pieces, the other ones still make sense.  That gives me something to focus on.

I won't say I love Minneapolis, because it still feels too early in the relationship.  I will say that I thoroughly enjoy it, and as I continue to pull the covers back on this city and get into bed, so to speak, I find even more to like.  I'm starting to feel whole again, and somehow more complete.  Is that an odd thing to say, or can you understand that?  For so long I felt like I was missing something... missing out on something... and I don't know why that is.  I'm still working on it.  While I might truly have a missing piece now,  I'm okay with that.  Or as okay as I could be, I suppose.  I learned in 2012 that I can make my life as good as I want it to be, and that was a powerful lesson in and of itself.    I need to trust in myself again, and like the seasons, I'll see the silent changes as they come.

I need to believe that.

becoming more... general

My very first job was at Hollywood Video.  Did you know that?

Mom was kinda-sorta (re: not at all) pressuring me to get a job as I approached 16, and I was dead set on getting one at the video store.  Most of my friends who already had jobs were working at McDonalds or something similar, and though @caitcd was working at a movie theater, she and I weren't exactly friends yet so I didn't think of it.  I never wanted to be in the food industry so I felt that the video store, something we had frequented every Friday night for as far back as I can remember, was right up my alley.  It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone reading this, because I'm still quite the movie fanatic and can more than hold my own in any sort of trivia game.

Hollywood Video on Memorial.
It was in the process of being converted to a thrift store in this picture.

Unfortunately on the day I turned 16, I went in to apply and was told corporate had changed the age requirement from 16 to 17.  Well... fuck.  I wasn't really driving a car very much on my own at that point, so it wasn't really a big deal that I wouldn't have a paycheck coming in.  I still got an allowance for doing chores around the house (taking the garbage out, mowing the lawn twice a week in the summer, etc).  So a year later I went back in to apply.  The employees all knew who I was, they knew who my mom was, so it was just this little joke of "come on in when you're old enough and we'll be good to go."  So I did.  And I got hired.

After doing my orientation (sexual harassment video, loss prevention video, blah blah blah) in Green Bay, I then went on to work for Hollywood Video on Memorial for $5.20 an hour.  The job was pretty simple, we mostly had VHS movies still so there was a lot of rewinding and the alphabetizing.  After the company went under, one of the many casualties that came with Netflix, that location became a thrift store.  But it'll always be my first job, and it was a good one.  A few months after getting it, I also started working at Regal Cinemas and I kept up both jobs for about a year and a half making, wait for it... $5.35 an hour!  Stop the press!  Gotta say, I loved it.  Free movies to rent and see in the theater, free drinks and food at the theater (I was overweight so free nachos was a good thing I guess), but on top of it I knew they liked me.

I was honest and dependable, always the dutiful employee that went above and beyond what I was supposed to be doing because I just felt it wasn't an option.  You're working... so do the job you were hired for.  Even if you're getting paid peanuts, do the job.  Someone will notice.

This is actually good advice that I grasped from an early age.  Put your head down, do your work, be polite, maybe suck up a little, and someone will notice.  Eventually.

When high school ended, so did those two jobs.  I suppose I was ready to move on to something more "adult," which is stupid because that meant leaving what were actually very easy jobs and getting into the world of clothing retail, a very different animal.  I spent the summer working for American Eagle as a sales associate, never leaving the fitting rooms once.  No cashier training, just folding clothes and straightening at night and feeling like I was cool.  I found out a few months later that I was considered just summer help, which in hindsight is ridiculous and something I probably could have fought.  In reality, I did call in sick a few times a month because I was 18 and excited to be "out" and everything that came with it.  This pushed me to go and apply for a new job at Express.  Which I got.

Now you should know, I ended up staying with Express for 8 years, or just a couple months shy of 8 years, actually.  There were a couple additional and/or different jobs peppered in there, including a brief stint at a call center and then Aldo for five months with a horrendous company.  I started as a sales associate on the sales floor, really not that special in my role but dependable.  Made my way to being the Stockroom Manager after a year, did that for another year, then stepped up to an Assistant Brand Manager and eventually a Brand Co-Manager, which meant I was in charge of visuals and floorsets for the store.  I loved the visual aspect of retail; changing out displays, setting the windows, dressing the mannequins, etc.  It gave me the opportunity to be creative, albeit with several constraints set by corporate, but regardless.

Express was a company that I had several highs and lows with.  I'd have a great year, then a rough year, wondering constantly if what I was doing was even what I wanted to be doing.  Some of that would have to deal with what was going on my my personal life of course.  It wasn't until Steve came along as my store manager in year 5 or 6, and that's when I started to become more than just an associate with keys and actually became a manager.  Steve taught me how to coach and develop a staff, to hold people accountable, and to ultimately rise above the crowd as a bonafide leader.  When I was promoted into my final position (Brand Co (basically second in command)) I had to leave Steve and my team in Appleton behind to work in Green Bay.  It was something I'd never wanted to do but I accepted because of the promotion and needed to get my leg up.

I understand why the powers that be moved me, though I still think the excuse was kind of bullshit.  Green Bay already had a manager in that role, and they wanted her in the Appleton store because it was a higher volume and felt she earned the opportunity/challenge.  However neither of us wanted to leave our respective stores, and it ultimately meant we would both quit the company within weeks of each other a year later.  Sometimes that's how it goes though and hindsight is always 20/20.

So long, suckas.

That final year with Express was a steady spiral downward through 2011 and into 2012.  I was newly single, questioning my life and my choices, working somewhere I didn't want to work and living with my parents again.  The store wasn't performing, we were always getting yelled at, and I was making absolutely dick for money.  Sorry for the ugly word, but really.  When my birthday came along at the end of the year, it brought with it the idea behind "26 Golden Things" and the seed was planted that I would look for a new job.  The thought alone of leaving Express (and everything I knew so well) was terrifying, and it was something I felt the least likely to come true in my list of things I wanted to accomplish.  I never even applied for a new job, I lucked out with one.  Mid April rolled in and I got a phone call from Courtney at Pottery Barn.  Just over a month later and I was trottin' out of Express at Bay Park with a bowl of Pigs-in-a-blanket and a few balloons, never to look back again.

I started with Pottery Barn in June of 2012, coming aboard as the Associate Store Manager (ACM) which, like at Express, was the second in command.  I was so scared and totally overdressed (wearing a 3-piece suit, what an asshole) and feeling like I was in way over my head.  The initial fear of working there was gone within a week though.  The pay was amazing compared to Express, the benefits were better by far, I was back in Appleton and was doing something I'd always wanted to do.  Not selling furniture, mind you; I was that annoying kid growing up who rearranged his room every few weeks.  I've always loved decorating and making a space my own, getting creative with the things I have and repurposing them sometimes to make something new.  I was content in my role again because not only did I take everything with me that I had learned with Express (which was a considerable amount because the training we went through was pretty consistent and intense), but I was being pushed again.

Being pushed is a key thing here, folks.  I think we get bored when we know what to expect.  Where's the excitement in the same day to day trials and tribulations?  It's nowhere, that's where.  Here was a place where I had an enormous amount of new product to learn about, and what was more, the product had stories behind it!  Like that Toscana dining table?  It was inspired by a 19th-century Northern Italian work table with an X-shaped base and keyed through tenons.  Like those acorn vase fillers?  The acorns themselves may be fake but the caps are real!

I'm a guy who finds joy in the details (you may not know this, but I have a book series loaded with details) so to work for a place full of these little factoids, count me right in.  When it came to being creative?  You had even MORE say with the floorsets because they needed to be adapted to your store.  There was so much more thought and creativity and excitement that went into it, changing the entire look of the store every three months with entirely new product and not just shuffling around mostly the same stuff with a few new shirts and washes of denim thrown in.  That was amazing to me, and it still is.  There's an energy through the store when one season ends and another begins, and I'm so happy it hasn't gone away.

I also had a great team of people to work with, chief among them being Courtney.  If Steve started me on the path to how to lead, Courtney put the polishing touches on it.  She taught me calm under pressure, how to diffuse situations, and how to just be so annoyingly nice that it enables you to get away with everything.  Usually.  We're a customer service based company, and she showed me what great customer service looks like from beginning to end.  I'll never lose that.

Sitting on another conference call with Courtney, secretly taping.
Upset about the itchy mosquito bite on my cheek.

A couple years in Courtney had a baby and I was made the Acting General Manager for the first time, filling the role for a little over three months before she came back to work.  I got a taste for running the ship myself through the holiday season, and to be perfectly honest, I hated it.  Everything that could go wrong (I thought) went absolutely and unequivocally wrong.  Disastrous.  Our numbers were "fine," but I wasn't, having gotten sick in early December and staying sick through January.  By the time she came back at the very end of February, I was more than happy to chuck the keys back at her and slide into the ACM role I had become so comfortable in.

Six months later I moved to Texas.

Now, the move was supposed to result in me transferring to west elm, a sister store under the Williams-Sonoma umbrella.  I'd be taking a step down in the corporate ladder, becoming the Sales and Service Assistant (ASM), but my pay would stay the same so I didn't really care.  I was going to a store that was almost quadruple the volume and I was going to get to add that to my resume.  Only it didn't shake out quite that way, and two weeks before moving the job fell through.  The replacement?  I would be the ACM for PBKids because they were going through a weird transition.  Now, I've written about that particular misery before so I won't get too into it, but suffice to say I became the Acting GM again after a couple weeks, for my second consecutive holiday season, and ran the ship again.

Mid November, about a week before I absolutely lost my shit, threw my hands up and threatened to leave.

If I thought things had gone awry in Appleton, they sure as shit detonated at PBKids.  Here was a store that broke me down, made me hate myself, my relationship, the city of Austin, made me gain weight, and ultimately put me in a depression I was not able to recover from for a year.  And I'm not being melodramatic, because that's how it went.  It wasn't the company, mind you, but that particular location and all of the crap that went with it.  My first Acting GM gig was full of things going wrong... my second gig was full of everything else that could go wrong.

But I couldn't quit.

I still had that mentality from when I first started working at 17, do you remember what it was?  You're here to do a job.  You've got to suck it up, you've got to show up, and you've got to sometimes just keep your fucking head down and do what needs to be done.  Yes it was exhausting.  Yes it was awful, and depressing, and annoying, and infuriating.  Sometimes it was just an absolute gut punch that no matter what I did, no matter how nice I was or how empathetic or understanding I tried to be, most of that staff hated me.  I don't say this for many things in my life, but if I had the choice to go back in time, I would not do it all over again.  I'd have found another job pronto and let that be it, because this one destroyed me.  But dear reader, y'know what?  Things would have ended differently then.  And for as much as I wouldn't want to do it all over again... I'm not so sure I would have wanted it to end differently.

I did the gig for four months before mercifully being able to go to west elm in the role I was supposed to have from the beginning.  They sort of... nursed me back to life, I suppose.  My wonderful boss Jesse gave me a week off between jobs, and when I finally did come on board I was greeted with open arms.  "What do you need from us?  What can we do for you?  What would make you feel successful in your role?  What ideas do you have to increase productivity?  What has worked for you in the past?  What takeaways do you have from your other jobs?"  He got me to think about the how's and why's behind my job, how to push the envelope and create my own business.  We live in a world where brick and mortar stores are in danger of being shuttered by the likes of online retail, and he showed me how to drive that traffic into the store.

I bitch a lot about Austin and what the experience was, but it really wasn't that bad.  Hindsight shows me I didn't give it as much of a chance as I should have, but as with other things in my life before it, it was circumstantial.  While west elm ultimately was not the best fit for me, it reinvigorated me in my job and helped me to uncover what I loved about it in the first place.  I was able to see things from a different perspective and I was able to appreciate them so much more because of it.  That is not something I would undo.  And when it comes to the friends I made at west elm?  I still talk to many of them and I still miss them so very much.  They made things bearable and work fun again, and I'll forever be appreciative of that.

At west elm, and starting to feel like myself again.

That May I had a mental breakdown, quite literally, and decided I needed to move back to the north.  I wanted to be back in a cold climate, at a brand I loved, near my family, and just... away.  Away from Austin.  Not the people, but the place.  I needed to surround myself with familiarity again and hardest of all, I needed to give up on my dream that Austin was the place to be and that ultimately, it really wasn't.  And that's okay.

After speaking several times with the new District Manager, Damien, I moved to Minneapolis and started back at Pottery Barn as the ACM once more.  This of course coming with the intent of being the Acting GM for a third consecutive holiday season to cover another maternity leave.  I think my mindset going into it this time was, in a word, different.  I was calm and cool and collected, much like Courtney had taught me and that Jesse had strengthened.  People kept trying to spook me about what was to come and what could possibly happen, but when it came down to it, I knew I could do it again with no sweat.

That's the funny thing about experiencing awful things; they prepare you for the future.

We know by now I'm a big fan of learning lessons, and that I'll search for meaning in anything I do with this being no exception.  Visual Manager quits on you a week before physical inventory?  Plan for it!  Associates quit on you in the middle of holiday?  Be ready to hire more!  Don't freak out, don't get down on yourself, drink lots of water, and try to disconnect when you can.  Reach out to your peers, vent to your peers, and don't be afraid to ask for help.  It's okay to fail, it's okay to slip, it's okay to make a mistake.  It's okay to not be perfect.

I have a hard time with that last statement, and it's something I'm still working toward... perfecting?  I don't like to fail.  I hate to fail, actually.  Not because I'm overly competitive and not because I don't want to be embarrassed, but because I don't want to be disappointed.  I like to only take calculated risks, I don't like to get my hopes up, and again, I don't like to be disappointed in myself.  But it happens and that's part of my development.

So ANYWAY, I made it through the third Acting GM gig with flying colors.  FLYING colors!  And I came out the other side of the holiday season bright eyed and bushy tailed, ready to take on the damn world!  I relinquished the Acting GM title very briefly in April for three weeks, and then took it on again at the end of the month.  Now I'm not gonna lie here... the ensuing few months weren't great.

May was a horrible month, and I'm still trying to bounce back from it (on a work level). My job itself was kind of in a weird limbo and could go away at any moment, dropping me back into the ACM role.

But, y'know... head down, keep working.

June was better.  June was actually really good, and I started feeling better about my performance despite still wondering about my job.

Head down, keep working.

And then Derek did what he did.  My personal life, still somewhat fragile and not what it used to be, took a lovely nosedive right into the porcelain peehole.  It's hard for me to exaggerate, willingly or not, but that was about as bad as it could have been.  And it sucked.  It sucked, and it hurt, and it still hurts and it still sucks.

But again, because it's what I know how to do... head down, keep working.

A couple days ago I got a phone call from Damien.  I was sitting on the gift wrap station in the stockroom at Pottery Barn, and I immediately started to cry after he said it.  Because I needed a win.  After everything, work and personal, I needed something that would make it all feel like it hadn't just been a waste of time.  A waste of life.

"You're the General Manager of Arbor Lakes now."

Just like that.

Quite suddenly every negative thought... every sour image... every doubt... it washes away.  Suddenly you realize it was all worth it.  The hours that followed proved this true, as my frustrations and angers that had to do with work turned into the writing on a dry-erase board, vanishing beneath the felt eraser.  It's my store now... it's my store.  There is no contract saying I have to give it back again; there is no waiting for it to be over, to lose the pay and step back down to ACM.  It's mine.  Officially.  Unequivocally.  Irrefutably.  Mine.

I look back on the last 14 years of jobs and see how far I've come.  That kid in the denim button-down shirt at Hollywood Video afraid of telling people they had late fee's on their accounts for past due movies.  That kid at Regal Cinemas in the maroon polo shirt, afraid to tell people to stop talking during the movie.  The uncomfortable 18 year old sucking his gut in to the point that it hurt, not eating anything for a day or two at a time because he was so desperate to lose weight and fit in at American Eagle.  I look back on the experiences and the lessons; why you don't date someone you work with and why you don't give your boss the finger when they can very easily turn around and catch you doing it.  I see why you always tell the truth at work, even if it sucks.  Why you stand up for yourself.  Why you don't back down to a bully (nasty-evil-bitch-troll-from-hell) store manager who you will eventually get fired if you just persevere and beat her at her own game.

When I posted this last year, Tina said she felt like it was a hero suiting up.

I even look back five years to my first day at Pottery Barn, being filled with excitement and anticipation over what a career with the company will bring.  A People First company, that does what it can for the people it employs.  I realize here at the end that I feel like I did at the beginning, and when I say the end, I don't mean with the company.  I mean the end of my "training" in a word.  My training to be the captain of the ship.  To be a store manager, nay, a General Manager.  Of course I still have buckets to learn, but now I've achieved something that has inadvertently been my goal for the last decade.

When posed with the question "Where do you see yourself in five years?" I have never been the kind of person to exclaim "RUNNING THE COMPANY AS THE CEO!"  I've always been a realist, choosing instead to only focus on the next level.  As an associate it was to become a manager, then to become the Co-Manager.  As the ACM, it was to be the GM.  Now?  I don't really know.  Maybe after I wear the hat for a few months... or not the hat, but maybe a peacoat, as my head is too big for a hat... but after that maybe I'll know what I want to do next.  For the time being I'm just going to enjoy it.

Because I've worked really hard.  I've struggled, I've fallen, I've messed up, and ultimately I've succeeded.  I don't accept this responsibility lightly.  I am grateful and overjoyed and ecstatic to be able to prove myself now more than ever before.  Because I earned it.  I deserve it.  And I'm gonna own it.

Like Muse says: "When hope and love has been lost, and you fall to the ground... you must find a way.  When the darkness descends, and you're told it's the end, you must find a way.  Dig down."

I know I'm not done digging, but at least I'm starting to see some reward for the effort.  Ciao for now (c;