We have five weeks left in Queen Anne. It's February 21st. Our lease is up at the end of March. Dani is moving out tomorrow which means Grr will be leaving. I love that cat.
Big changes are coming. Dani leaving is a real harbinger. Seeing her pack her boxes has made me pause and go, "oh shit, this lease is up real soon."
Where to next?
Caitlin is headed to Portland.
I'm between moving to Central Oregon and just south of Seattle. Spokane is now lower on the list because the apprentice electrician program isn't as big. I'm ranked 770 in Seattle; still waiting on word from Oregon and Spokane. —Yes ranked 770th of who knows how many. This might be a while.
Whether I stay in Washington or move out, I will probably be "on the books for a bit." I have to sign up for a position as a stockman (picking up and dropping off supplies) or a I-forget-the-name-but-they-pull-wires-and-it-pays-slightly-less-than-stockman-while-being-slightly-more-miserable-supposedly.
I'm walking up to a major crossroads that will determine where I'll be for the next five years. There isn't a right answer.
I have the strong gut feeling that I don't want to stay in Seattle. And, yes, I have reckoned with the fact that I will be leaving good friends behind. I don't want to be 35 and be in Seattle. That being said, PSE stands for Puget Sound Energy, not Seattle Energy. The Puget Sound has a lot to offer. For example, I could—though not likely—end up on the Olympic Peninsula. My experience is not-all-that-typical in that I have lived close to downtown during my entire time in Seattle. I could probably find a place in this region that I would be comfortable in (and maybe even afford.).
Central Oregon is promising, but it is unknown and probably quite different. However, in my experience, wherever I have gone, I have made friends. I have met good and bad people. Everytime I have moved—even just within Seattle—I have learned something new: a new neighborhood teaches you new things. But moving has been growing increasingly painful.
What incredible lengths we go through to find a sense of home.
I am going to be very lonely soon.
I'm not too sure what I feel right now. There's a few things going on.
The first is that I feel a sense of surprise. I'm kind of shocked to see myself wishing to hear a part of my self saying, "Oh can we just have some stability and stop moving for once and just live somewhere," and then not have my immediate response be, "Fuck no, we have shit to see; we're not stopping anywhere nearby."
I don't feel like I am merely wandering anymore. It feels like I am looking for a place to settle. That might happen in two years, or it might happen in ten or fifteen. Probably closer to ten.
I'm trying to take care of 40 year old Andy. It's hard to imagine him at 40. (It's shocking to see that number—40—written.) I've been trying to take care of myself ten years out. At 21-22 I wanted 30-35 year old Andy to have a good body, good social skills, and an education that he would find meaningful and that would find him work. (We're almost there with the work part.)
What does 40 year old Andy need?
I think he'll want a wife. He won't want to be dating because that takes a lot of time and energy, and at that age people prefer meaningful, deep, long-term relationships. I think he'll want to have a family started already (at 35 or so). I think he'll still be reading good books. I hope he'll still regularly ride motorcycles (with tempered enthusiasm). Maybe he'll have a small photography business on the side. I hope he'll still keep his body in good shape. He probably won't have as much time to write like he does now, but I think he'll still keep a journal to organize his thoughts. He'll write thoughtful letters to friends, family, and himself. He'll want to own a house because he grew tired of renting well before the age of 28. He will have chickens, or he will have grown tired of raising chickens. He'll have a dog or two.
It feels weird to write all of this out like just like that. It almost feels like a dubious move—as if I were invoking bad luck—to spell it all out so clearly. Because, tragedy can strike at any moment. And tragedy will eventually strike. Every relationship ends in tragedy. Every star fades, or blows up, or something. We all die. Some live well; many do not. (As I type this there is a deranged man outside our apartment screaming nonsense at the top of his lungs, nonstop for the past ten minutes, at 1am on a cold and exceptionally windy night.)
Anyway, I have a sense of direction. And I have forward momentum. I'm going to keep that momentum.
(A cause of many minor accidents in beginner riders is a lack of throttle. The spinning of the tires, and to a lesser degree of the internal components of the engine, creates a gyroscopic force that keeps the rider upright. If you want to stay upright, keep moving.)
...
A thought mostly unrelated to the above writing:
I think that dating apps like Tindr, Bumble, etc. are like a mirror. They're a mirror just like dating is in general. You'll find what you're looking for (not what you think you're looking for). Granted, I get that women get a lot of unsolicited dick pics. And granted, ugly dudes don't really stand a chance online. But besides that, the dating scene is a ruthless mirror. If you repeatedly come across a similar type of person, it's because that's what you're looking for. Or, perhaps more often than not, that is what your shadow is looking for.
Most of us don't realize what we're looking for. We just notice what we keep finding. Sometimes this works out fine, and we're happy. But not in my experience. Maybe that's too general to be meaningful.
It's serious work learning what we (authentically) enjoy. And it's more work learning what is both (truly) good and (authentically) enjoyable. And then it's even more work leaning to (truly) enjoy what is (truly) meaningful and (truly) good. (I authentically enjoyed LSD for a while, but that didn't work out so well. —Philosophy, however.)
