What's up

I've been pretty silent lately. I've been thinking a lot, but not about anything I really want to write about. Work is d-e-a-d, so that monkey is off my back for a little while. I do feel guilty collecting a paycheck when there is little work to be done. C'est la vie, I suppose.

I'm selling my yuppie albatross, the BMW, in the next couple of months. We're going to buy my mom's car, which is an older Accord. It's a fine car and it will get me around for two years until we can purchase a newer car outright. I find myself wanting to get rid of some other trappings, but I don't know where to start. I WANT to get rid of the McMansion, but I can't, not without taking a huge financial loss. Hold on, hold on for two more years.

Why is home ownership a good thing again? Can someone remind me?

This is a very short life

I've reached a good point in the last couple of weeks. I can actually see myself working somewhere other than where I'm working now, and see myself doing it successfully. I've realized - 100% FOR SURE - that this is not my long term career. My life is too short, and I'm too unhappy.

The problem, as always, is money honey. I make a decent amount of it. So, over the next year, we plan to save as much as we can. I'm selling my fancy car in a couple of months and buying an old Accord. We'll own it outright in no time.

We did make a mistake. We bought a very expensive house, and now we can't sell it. For a while, at least, I've got to keep on in my current position. I hope that within the next two years we can sell the house for our purchase price. I'll even move back in our townhome if we have to. We have two properties, and we've got to get rid of one or both. I've learned a valuable lesson, I just hope it doesn't cost us too much.

I don't know where I'll end up, but I know a change is coming. I've already changed. Like when you know a boyfriend isn't right for you, I know this job isn't right for me. Now, it's just down to timing. When can I move on?

Floodgates open? Check.

A small shift has happened since May 1st, which just happened to be the day we landed in Costa Rica. Sometime since that day, I gained a pair of balls. I don't mean this in a real physical way, of course. I mean this metaphorically, never mind the fact that the expression is a bit misogynistic.

I really pushed my boundaries in Costa Rica. I went zip-lining, which involved getting tethered to a steel cable and pushed off a metal platform into a precipice some 600 feet above the tree canopy. I did this not just one, but seven times. I reached speeds of 35 MPH as I cruised along zip-lines more than a half-mile long, which, in case you were wondering, IS long enough to ponder what would happen if your harness broke. I was terrified, and I loved it.

Me, pre-May 1st:
I don't really ride roller coasters. I don't like to fly (though I am fascinated with aviation). And I definitely don't understand why people would jump out of a perfectly good airplane with just a little parachute attached to their back.

Me, current day:
Maybe I'll ride a big coaster next time we go to an amusement park - don't knock it 'til you've tried it! Flying on that 20-seat puddle jumper in Costa Rica was so cool and bumpy, the turbulence on our jet ride home barely phased me. The flights were fun. I still don't want to jump out of an airplane, but I get why people do it.

See? I think I may have been bit by the adrenaline bug.

My mom and my sister are notorious wimps. So vocal are they in their wimpiness that it rubs off on the impressionable people around them. Notably, me. I think of how many years I wasted nursing THEIR fears. Why?

When I stood there, terrified, deciding if I wanted to pull up and let the guide push me across that precipice in Costa Rica, I thought about why I was afraid. In an instant, I decided I needed to know for myself what my limits were. I looked at the guide and said: "Ready."

Apparently, I was ready. Ready to say goodbye to old, irrational fears. And ready to start living for myself.

And today, I drove a speedboat for the first time. In case you've never done so, driving on a crowded recreational lake on a weekend day with heavy winds is not the easiest introduction. But it was fun. I think I'll do that again. And who knows what else I'll do?

Knock knock. Who's there? Oh, it's real life

My post-vacation bliss is fading. Today has brought the following: my sister being all shitty about costs for a mountain trip this summer, a snafu with the maid in cleaning our townhouse, the realization that the carpet in both our townhome and our real house is fucked, a person who has known me for THREE years totally pronouncing my name incorrectly (she calls me something different every week) and a surprising lack of work at my real job. The last thing scares the shit out of me. I'm a real estate attorney, and the real estate market sucks big ones.

THUD.

I think that's the sound of my return to reality.

Hola

I'm sitting in my office, which is starkly illuminated by flourescent lights. If it weren't for the large picture window that faces actual trees and birds, I might go crazy. It all seems so harsh, the flourescent lights, the suit jackets, the sounds of the office phones, ringing and ringing. Costa Rica was so soft. The sounds, the air, the light, the voices of its people, all somehow less intrusive than the soundtrack that accompanies life in Atlanta. So subtle and dream-like was Costa Rica that I wonder if I imagined it. The pictures and video prove that it wasn't all in my head, but still it feels like a dream. An oasis, really.

A complete write-up will come later, but suffice it to say that I loved Costa Rica. While I'm sad to be back, I don't have the despair that has accompanied my return from other vacations. Why? I can't place it, but somehow Costa Rica is still with me. I found myself very at peace there, even in the large city of San Jose. The peace is still inside, and I'm determined to let it remain for as long as it can.