Moving to Bend, OR!!?!?!

I am following a crazy boy across country to Bend, OR. I have never been to this place, I don't have a job there, and we don't have endless savings. It sounds crazy, and it is. I'm completely lost with no direction. At least I can admit it. I am twenty seven and I have several years experience in the service industry, a boyfriend and a truck. I have no passions, I am dedicated to nothing. I am a free agent, a floating body with an empty head. My family is no better than me - disorganized, cluttered, without direction. I have a desire within me for direction but nowhere to follow it. Every path seems insurmountable.

Perhaps in order to find my passions I need to stop taking life so seriously. Don't be hard on myself or others. Accept others and the world as it is. Accept my family for who they are and realize that they are a part of me.

My goals for Bend are to maintain organization, save money, find passions and above all work every moment of every day on total acceptance of myself and others. Respect others for their tenacity and hard work instead of criticizing what they don't have or what they don't do.

I need to relinquish control over other's lives and retain focus on my own. Sure, I am making this decision based on wanting to continue my relationship with Rusti, but I can still do things my own way and let him do them his way. Also I need to be aware of when our paths converge and when they diverge.

I must be open to the future. I cannot control what will happen, all I can do is take care of the things that are immediate priorities. Working in the service industry is not a long term solution for me, but who knows where it may lead. I am still young and I have a different path than others. Bend is included in that path for better or for worse. I will make the most of my time there. I will not look too far ahead into the future, instead I will plan for the next moment and maybe the next day. That is what I know I can handle. I will take opportunities as they are presented to me, and be patient. I must not bite off more than I can chew.

I need to remember the lessons I have learned over time. To live life on my own terms, not for other people. That it is rewarding to save for a goal and see it to fruition. This goal does not have to be for someone else, it could be for me. No compromises. Attitude is everything. To be positive and not critical, especially in the workplace. This is the newest lesson I have learned and probably the most important. The workplace has always been my achilles heel, and the reason why is because I am overly critical of it. This spreads diseased thoughts throughout the workplace. My goal in Bend is to be happy with whatever job I end up with. I will strive to maintain an accepting state of mind and I will do my best to choose my workplace instead of settling for it. In this way I hope to create a long term work environment so that I can grow in other areas without being stressed out about money.

Creativity, Fear, and How Perfectionism will destroy your life...

This entry has remained a title only for too long. The fear of being misunderstood, of being judged, compared, or scrutinized has been holding its anvil over my head for too long. I feel stifled by this fear, as though it's a pillow being held over my face and eventually it will snuff me out. The drive to impress, a fear of mistakes, a preoccupation with perfection is a part of me that will eventually drive all joy out of my life if I let it. And lately, it's gone unchecked. I am so frequently in awe of others accomplishments that I feel that I have little to contribute. I am all too aware of my failings and shortcomings, and even the things I've done "right" have their own flaws that render them, in my mind, contentious. It's impossible to find joy in anything you do when you're constantly worried with impressing others, whether you're doing it the "right" way, or worried with finding a better way to do whatever it is you're doing. I would like to leave this fear behind, but I am afraid of the consequences. What will happen if I actually stop caring what people think? Will I end up a loon? Would I be happier as a loon? Most likely.

My questions are: how do I overcome this fear? How do I gather the strength to weather criticism, derision, and scoffs? How do I stop taking life so goddamn seriously?!?!?!

Courage and Fear

I am courageous. Not in a super badass way, like slaying dragons for chicks or anything, but in small ways. It's not that I won't back down on a dare - I'm not stupid (which can look courageous from time to time). It's just small choices that I make at the very last minute - I often figure if other people can do it (and no matter what "it" is, someone does it, and does it well), then I can too. This is why I frequently end up on adventures. I find that new experiences thrill me instead of scaring me, I love to meet new people, and I'm unafraid of leaving my junky car unlocked less a psycho killer lurks inside at the end of my dinner shift. In reality, courage is having an implicit trust in the plan of the universe and sacrificing the illusion of control over the outcome of a situation. Through this attitude I have uncovered a truth: the world is less complicated than we think. It is less evil, more open and friendly, and less judgmental than we have been told. In my adventures into the world around me, I have found landscapes to be less demanding than I thought, people to be more friendly, and infrastructure to be less challenging than I ever dreamed. Upon reaching the southernmost town in Chile on my first backpacking trip, my response was, "wow, that was easier than I thought it would be." The same thought occurred to me after riding my bicycle 1,300 miles through Alaska. Remember that next time just getting to the post office, or making that phone call that you should have made two weeks ago seems like too much work.

I find that although I am courageous in many adventure scenarios, other seemingly inconsequential events in my life lurk in the shadows, leaving that awful pit of fear deep in my stomach. Even though I have a somewhat menial job as a waitress, work scares me more than almost anything else I do. Perhaps it's my lack of understanding - we fear what we don't know - mixed with a healthy dose of truly psycho work experiences that has made me a tail-between-the-legs, yes-man employee that is a pale shadow of the strong, insightful person I am able to be outside of work. Currently I am in a healthy work relationship and excited at the prospect of being able to assuage the fear demons that still live in my stomach. How is this done? I'm not sure. But the path stretches out before me - a different type of adventure.

The Mission

To unforgivingly delve into the workings of myself to try and find some sort of direction. To try to make something out of all of these passions that seem so disconnected. To hopefully help to sympathize with others in the same boat, and perhaps to coax out of them some sort of conversation about these latent desires that we cannot quite describe, but also will not go on living without. Basically, the mission is to use the power of the word to start to answer some questions.

Is it my age? My generation? My parents? My socio-economic staus, race, sexual preference or creed? How do each of these, if any, impact who I am, how I react, whether I will succeed or fail or be happy or be unhappy?

Another mission is to look outside of myself. I would like to offer knowledge, reviews and research on subjects that enter my life. I would like to relay my experiences (usually hapless) with these scattered passions. As far as I can contend at this moment, they include cycling, skiing, adventuring of any sort, writing, and knitting and crocheting. Animals are a very important part of my life as well, and I will drop everything to savor a microbrew anyplace, anytime, with anyone.

So, let's go, shall we?

**If you read this post, PLEASE post a comment. It can be anything, related or not, but I would love to feel like I'm having a conversation with you instead of just writing at you!