26 point what?

Boston is mad with Marathon fever. The weather is getting nicer, more people are going outside and being more active. Almost everywhere you look people are running with their iPods, weaving in and out of the foot traffic. It’s rather inspiring, especially when you feel like a potato that only stays indoors. But all that is going to change for me this weekend. Not only am I going outside, I’m getting out of town. That’s right, to the woods with me. It will be the first camping trip of the year and I am so excited. Time to pull out that bow drill set and take the pack of the wall.

Last year I had a job with the Chicago Parks District taking middle school students to a state park to camp for a week. I realized it was pretty much paradise, sitting in a canoe on a lake at 7am, drinking coffee and watching the mist lift off the water, and getting paid $20 an hour. Yup, pure heaven! Unfortunately due to monetary restraints, that job is unavailable to me again this year as they have moved up the schedule and it overlaps with the end of my second City Year.

So weekend camping will have to suffice until I can find another outlet to get outside and enjoy nature. Where does that leave me for employment after this June… I don’t know. I’ll be done with City Year on June 30th and need to find a job and a place to live from there. I need to start saving up some money for a security deposit and find a job that I will really enjoy. What’s the change for me? Well I was planning on applying for the Peace Corps and hoping to go abroad as of August, but… I'm looking at things locally and realizing that sometimes things change.

In the meantime, I've got a fling. She lives in NYC and will be done with her Americorps program on June 19th. While I’m not naïve enough to think that this is “the one”, it is a lot of fun and I enjoy her company. I don't think it will really go anywhere, mostly because I don't think that long distance relationships really work. Tried it and failed, but Dan and Lindsay have shown me that sometimes they do. With our on again, off again status, and the lack of a definition for so long, it has become a "it is what it is". We both are honest and open with that and its fun.

Sometimes, I’m afraid that I suffer from the same depression that my dad gets in the winter. I just get unmotivated and into a funk. But with the arrival of spring and warmer weather, my mood is increasingly brighter and my productivity has increased as well. I’m really excited to get outdoors and to take off the gut that I’ve been forming over the past 4 months. Yay for being happy!

What next?

This is an attempt at freeing some of what's bottled up inside. I've recently come to realize that I hold onto things without release much more than I thought I did. So much has happened lately that I'm not sure where to start with things...

Jason is dead. He committed suicide. My oldest and one of my closest friends is gone by his own conviction. I'm sad and still mourning over this loss. We weren't always the closest at times. We would go months without a word, and then one of us would make that call that would put us right back to where we were. I know that he must have been in serious pain to do what he did, and must have been suffering for a long time. I'm sorry he was hurting so much and there was nothing I could do about it... I'll miss him.

Things have been mostly numb for a long time since this happened. I even realized that the entire week after I went back to Rapid for the funeral has become rather fuzzy. I don't really remember doing anything or talking to anyone. Its really weird. I've gotten through most of the numbness and have moved into frustration. I'm frustrated! That pretty much says it all. I'm tired of my work and the lack of anything inspiring that comes out of it. I'm ready to be done with this "job" and to move on to what ever is next. So what's next? Like I really have a clue... The good thing is that we are going to be traveling again. This Saturday I fly to Springfield for an event and then I'll be back in Chicago at the end of the month again. The sad thing is I don't care why I'm traveling, I'm just excited to see people when I go. I could really give a rat's ass about the events we are planning and running.

I've been so aggressively riled up lately that I'm finding it hard to release my tension. Sometimes I feel like breaking things, sometimes I just want to find the most secluded spot as high up as I can and just ignore the world. I'm really very curious as to what the immediate future will hold for me. I can't seem to get behind this Peace Corps idea right now, no matter what I tell people. I haven't even completely submitted my application yet. Do I want to do it or not. If I wasn't thinking about responsibility, I don't think there would be any doubt in my mind, I would go for two years if I could. But part of me wants to make a little money and pay back my debt... Oh debt! I feel as though there is this unbearable pressure of debt that is weighing down on me without any future in site without it. I've got some medical bills from this year, my credit card debt from a couple of summers ago, and my student loans still to payoff. Money sucks so badly!

I realize that more than anything I'm just in a funk right now. I don't want to do anything and I can't motivate myself to do anything. I try to run and then never make it out. I want to eat healthy again, but find myself eating crap all the time. I don't like how my body looks, however vain that might be, but I'm unable to get off my ever growing fat ass and do something about it. Maybe the change in the weather will help me out. I just feel like I'm always behind recently. I'm just not motivated to do anything. Its something about being in Boston, without any close friends, not enjoying my job, and making crap for pay. I know it takes time to reverse things, but where does the time come from.

I'm looking at this blog and I'm even unmotivated by my own words and my own writing. Blah. Maybe I'll try again later.