South Bound

So I've decided to go to New Orleans. I made this decision after it had been percolating quietly for a number of days, maybe weeks, just a niggling little idea that something was on the horizon. I woke up after a several day battle with a nasty virus, finally feeling fresh, clear, healthy, and decided. I'm going to New Orleans.

New Orleans, specifically, both does and doesn't represent a goal. More, it's where my closest friend is, it's something new, it represents a challenge and and adventure, and to be specific, it exists in my mind as sort of a mysterious, colorful wonderland. A place where anything can happen, where reality sometimes gets turned on its head.

With the exception of New York, I can't really think of anywhere more interesting in the United States, and being that I can't afford New York, New Orleans represents a pretty close second.

It's been quite a year. After a long, long period of pondering, weighing, soul-wrenching and countless sleepless nights, I decided to end my marriage. I have no desire to take inventory of a decade plus of marriage. But I will say that it makes an adult out of you. It grows you right up. And in this maturing, I found that I needed to be not married again in order to be the person I am, the person that I am expanding into. It was a good decision, and I haven't looked back.

The year brought two other relationships with men, both of whom I adore, and I'm grateful for their presence in my life. It brought the first solid year of financial independence I've ever had. I was a just out of college relationship jumper, and engaged to be married by the time I was 25. I always had some kind of a safety net financially, and that made me a bit spoiled, impetuous, and yes, irresponsible about money. I still haven't fully shaken those habits, but it has been at once liberating and terrifying to know that I can make it on my own. I'm usually just one paycheck away from the poorhouse, but I take an attitude that the Universe Will Afford, and generally everything tends to work out alright. I think I'll stick with that.

Right now probably isn't the world's best time to be relocating, being that I'm as underemployed as I have been in years, and certainly since I have been on my own, but it is precisely this status that is allowing me to be free enough to make a move. I'm reluctantly grateful for this underemployment. Reluctant because I hate being underemployed-- the overabundance of time, the scarcity of funds, but grateful because it is releasing me into what I hope will be a larger experience.

Whew. I'm very contemplative tonight.

I sort of feel like going on about what else I'm thinking about, what I'm going to miss about Minneapolis, what I'm looking forward to in NOLA, what I think my life might look like. But I think I'm too tired just now. It's late, I've been inside my own head for most of the evening, and I think stopping now might be best. More later.

This New Era

It seems like whenever I'm experiencing something truly big in my life, I want to start up one of this here thingees. The first time around, with Europulp, my sis and I were embarking on a big European adventure, and I wanted to document it somewhat. This was also five years ago, and also on the cusp of blog culture. I wasn't really authentic in my writing there, and was mostly interested in flouting how zany! my life was. ie: regurgitating a lot of drunken escapades that in retrospect weren't very interesting, or, probably, very authentic in their telling. It can be funny to look back though. And, embarrassing.

When I noticed that I wasn't really all that comfortable with the girl portrayed in that blog anymore, I started What I Know Now, but that quickly dropped off. I considerably lost interest in blog culture, noticed that it was often about a lot of posturing and silliness as well as an epic time suck.

But really, journaling is a good, regular practice, and like LaRocca likes to say, "If you didn't document it, it didn't happen." So, here we go again, I'm embarking on a new adventure, a new chapter, the kind of thing that I've taken to calling "eras". More on that later.

This here will be a journal, rather than a "blog," and how I mean to differentiate the two, I don't really know. I suppose it will be mostly for me, and if a few of you out there want to look in now and then, that's cool. Probably, there won't be any sort of cohesiveness, and I might paste old writings in here, along with new ones, and rambling ideas that sometimes won't make any sense at all. If you're peeking in, I apologize in advance for that.

But I do need a creative outlet of some kind, and this is just more practical than pen and paper. Also, I'd like a few loved ones to be able to catch up on what I'm up to, because now that I'm going south, we won't just be able to grab a wine as easily as we once did. So here we go. This new era.