A New and Honest and Awesome Beginning

My new year has not yet begun, not really. I think my new year might begin tomorrow. Tomorrow, I think? I hope.

January 31, 2010

I believe too easily in cycles, in somewhat arbitrary (but still astrologically significant?) measures of times. One year ago today I was alone in Costa Rica, alone for the first time and feeling acutely so. I was soon to be heading out on “real travel” away from all friends and North American attachment.

I was not in a great place. Although I was shortly thereafter in the warm hospitality of family in Bolivia, my heart was lost, my head was confused. I spent the next four and a half months traveling about and trying to find myself again.

Wasn’t that the whole point? Wasn’t I having a grand adventure and figuring out my life?

January 31, 2011

One year later I am in Seattle and living in my favorite neighborhood and sitting in my favorite café. I worked through the tangle of emotions motivating me to move back to Massachusetts and I accepted that Seattle is my home. For the first time in years, I have no specific plans for leaving the state, much less the country. Okay, maybe I'm going to Charlie & Sarah’s wedding in May, but I don't have plane tickets for that yet!

If February 1st, 2010 marked the beginning of my true travel, then so today and tomorrow mark the beginning of my real settling in Seattle, settling as in nesting and building and not as in accepting mediocrity. Indeed, 2011 is the final year of My Twenties and I feel some pressure to excise completely any mediocrity from my life. Whit discussed similarly this transition from twenties to thirties.

How to Be Fucking Awesome?

I earnestly present the preceding as a question. I have been reading and rereading Julien Smith’s Short and Sweet Guide to Being Fucking Awesome since Avery sent me the story. (I’m not kidding.) This morning I spent an hour or more catching up on coverage of the unrest and protest in Egypt and found myself afterward unable to care about work. I discovered and delighted in a project to produce a 71-minute dance music video to Girl Talk’s All Day.

Despite total preoccupation last week, I managed to ignore all weekend consideration of my future, but I find myself now soul-searching. What important and good and fucking awesome am I doing with my life?

If I am to be honest with myself, as Julien Smith demands, I am not being as awesome as I could be. Do I give enough of myself to the world? I think I could give more. I want to give more. Am I always an artist, am I always creating with passion, conviction, and joy? No, I admit that am not, that I do not: not always. Have I run a sub-5-minute mile yet? Do I have a dog yet? No, and I’m nearly 30 years old! Time is running out!

These times of transition frighten me—these obvious opportunities to take a risk and make a change—but I am heartened by my track record. I moved to Seattle without any employment and built a career as a freelance developer & designer. I left a comfortable job to contract full-time again when I realized my heart was no longer in that position. I left Seattle and threw it all into the wind.

And, no matter my past, I am supported. My family loves and believes in me. My friends tease out my true feelings and remind me of the shape of my heart. Brooke challenges me to believe in and develop my true professional value. Everyone in this glorious Seattle community—Dave, Sarah, Charlie, Charlie, Liz, Jack, Faye, Nick, Eric, Carla, Alex et al—sticks with me as I talk though and try to puzzle out my life. They offer invaluable perspective. Whit sends me the sweetest fucking emails ever:

I was proud of her (Claire). I was excited about the leap of faith she made and her courage to do what she felt she needed to do.

And I told her that every single day.

It's important to me to let you know that people are doing the same for you. Everyone is. Claire and I talk about your constant leaps of faith. Your ability to leave a job, work for yourself, travel for a long period of time, move from place to place—but we also know that it’s exhausting … we’re all cheering you on, the problem is we’re not next to you in bed before you fall asleep. We don’t kiss you goodbye in the morning and give you good luck in your search for the next step in your life. We’re here, we’re just not there.

… we all talk about you more than you could know. When we talk about you we’re excited, we’re proud...

Wow.

So?

I thought I had a plan for 2011, for making the shift I needed in my life. Plans changed, plans change, and now I am not so sure. Still, opportunity exists, there is strength in my heart, and fire and ice and electricity all dancing around in my head. Why not make a plan today? Why not start a new life now and tomorrow and on and on and on?