On Hoth in BookThree: Flight Log 2016

It is certainly cold! But it looks like it might not be super bad. When I woke up this morning, my weather app said -22 F and it has already warmed up to be -18. So… there’s that. Of course, I had to go out and shovel a bit to clear a path from the door to the cars. That was less than pleasant as I had trouble sleeping last night due to the cold-enhanced pain running through my legs. But the good news is that shoveling has distracted me from the leg pain by providing a mind-altering amount of back pain. lol.

This weekend, as I stay holed up indoors trying to curse the outside, I ask myself “What would you do differently if you were in Des Moines right now?” And the answer comes easily and obviously. I love hosting. If I have a space and friends; I could do a different “theme party” every week for 3 years! So what would I do if I lived in Des Moines and it was this cold? Hoth Survival Party! Hot drinks, baked goods, movies and board games. Take it to the nines. OR since we are in December; if I were in Des Moines I could go watch a movie… likely with friends, but seeing a movie at ALL would be nice and a “larger community required” activity considering that within the whole of this region the largest theater only has 3 screens. And then I look around Tiny Town. Empty houses that have been abandoned as the economy tanked and never recovered. Houses with occupants, but occupants who spend their weekends elsewhere as this is the Adult version of a Suitcase College. So again I find myself thinking “No wonder OWI and Drugs are such big problems around here. There isn’t anything else to do!”

And eventually this thinking leads to the familiar thought patterns of a metaphorical “yesterday.” I contemplate when things turned shitty and pinpoint several exact moments. The entire year of my 17th year of life. Not handling College Transition well. The entire year of my 20th year of life. Those ones are easy.

Then my brain drifts to harder questions. Like… working at Best Buy for 4 years even though I had a College Degree. A waste of time and talent to be sure; but I made lifelong friends that I miss every day. So would I do it differently? Or the tough one I come back to constantly. Moving away from Des Moines and going to law school in Omaha. If I had stayed in Des Moines; would we have been able to find a job there more easily? If we had stayed in Des Moines; would we have appreciated it as much? Would we have even wanted to get a job in Des Moines? Plus… I still believe it is important to investigate other perspectives… it is important in understanding others to experience a vast array of different lifestyles. Not to mention that I made lifelong friends that I miss every day.

So… before I was “an adult”… I made mistakes that I know for certain I would wish to change.
But after becoming “an adult”… the choices I’ve made have been far less certain. With perfect hindsight… if I were to pull an extreme Okarin, I’d send myself back to the start of my 5th Grade Year. I’d make better social decisions, better financial decisions, and spend more time really trying to focus on understanding STEM classes. I’d re-write Junior High by knowing who I was and what I liked, so I’d be led around and used up far less. High School would be… infinitely better. Knowing who to avoid, who to trust… that would profoundly alter my world line! I do believe I would go to the same college… but I would not have spent my entire first year in acting. I would have hammered the Liberal Arts core… really pushed myself on that. Then I would take an intensive “Occupational Exploration” class during the summer to really figure out what my best career path would be. And I would hammer that. Clearly, I’d pick up either a 2nd Major in Religion or pick up a Minor in Religion… as I did genuinely enjoy those classes… but (as has been routinely apparent) those classes have done nothing to put me in a more economically sound position. But those changes are the only ones I can declare with confidence. In college… would I have made different friends? Better friends? Would me love life have gone completely differently? And would I be okay with that? Would I have been with Aoife, or Molly, or someone else entirely? Then afterwards… if my life took such a drastic turn that I never met Mike, or Amanda, or Matt, or MBFITWW.... would I be okay with that or would it haunt me?

So good news/bad news for me there I suppose.
Bad News: I’ve gone through some pretty horrendous shit.
Good News: I’ve survived it all so far.
Bad News: I’m not in a good place right now.
Good News: I have several friends whom I adore.
Bad News: It takes literally months of planning to schedule hanging out with those friends.
Good News: I’m trying to get into a better situation.
Bad News: I keep running into metaphorical brick walls and closed doors.

Last updated December 18, 2016