Radio silence is partly the function of an overtired mind, the contents of which remain an uninteresting and shrill repetition of the same circular thoughts. You know them all. Insert whinge about job, about job market for certain aspiring professors, about commute, about the glass ceiling, about sleep (which I’ve been getting a relatively large amount of lately, but I so cherish complaining about the lack of it).
I am continually amazed at how winter completely wrecks me. Every year at this time I start to suffer an existential crisis, and wonder why? Why do we live? What am I doing that anybody will give a fig about in fifty years? What is my purpose? Why should I bother getting out of bed today? And then spring comes and the flip flops come out and I go – holy cow, poor self, your perspective really is directly proportional to the degrees on the thermometer.
If someday we get a job offer from someplace in Minnesota or the like, I will point my nose right back at this here blog post and go – REMEMBER. YOU DO NOT DO THIS WELL. “This” being wintertime. We have talked about Florida or Southern California as possible places to relocate, and decided against it for reasons of proximity to family and also the fact that they are areas prone to calamitous natural disasters. And then I get to the end of February and start thinking that a hurricane would sound pretty good about now. I could totally chill in my bathtub covered with a mattress* for hours, just as long as I was doing it in a t-shirt and sandals.
Dooce, the Utahan bloggess extraordinaire, seems to take a family vacation down to Southern Cal every year at this time. I totally feel her, and if I was a bit more clever with wordplay and marketing, and also married to a web genius (I am married to a genius, just not a web genius) I would ditch this popsicle stand and follow the sun in a heartbeat. I would sail up and down the world’s beautiful coasts, working from whatever sunny locale in which I happened to find wifi.
I like to think that as I get older and wiser, I also get more aware of my own personality, what I need, what I love. And then sometimes I remember that about a hundred years ago when I still thought I was hot stuff and could do whatever I wanted, I wanted to be an actor and I wanted to live on the beach. These were things that made me happy, and these were things that I would do one day. The intervening years have led me astray, the pursuit of financial security has pulled me from my path, and continues to do so. But right now, if I could have exactly what I wanted without worrying about putting food on my table, this is still what I would choose. To be an actor/singer, and to live near the ocean in a warm and sunny place. It seems so simple, doesn’t it?
This is what growing up in Southern California will do to a girl. It makes us all total pansies. I wonder if one did a study on Prozac prescriptions, they would find that displaced San Diegans make up a significant percentage of takers? My baby sister should be happy she spent most of her formative years in Louisiana, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Her vision of what weather should be like includes dripping hot summers, long frigid winters, and violent storms in between the two. She seems happy wherever she is, as long as she has cute weather-appropriate outfits to wear.
Bring on the spring. No, really. Please. As soon as possible. I’m desperate, here.
*In case you find this confusing, I am told by my carpool mate that this is how Floridians duck and cover during a hurricane watch. He hated Florida, by the way. The grass is always greener, eh?
i\’m begging summer to come as well. the older i get, the more i realize that i can\’t handle winter anymore. the lack of sunshine, the brisk wind, the snow…it all adds up to a very down and out girl. and i did live in florida during my younger years and LOVED it. my birthday, which falls in january, was always spent outside playing games with friends. i remember when we moved to indiana and i was DEVASTATED when i couldn\’t play games outside because it was -10 degrees with a foot of snow on the ground. i still love florida and would move in a heartbeat. and i would too, except for the fact that my entire family lives in the midwest. *sigh* what\’s a girl to do?