I Made It

When the world is breaking down around you
Taking everything that you know
What you didn't know
Is that we can go forever
If we want to we can live
Inside of a moment
The one that we own

Here I am on the eve of the day I will depart Charlotte.  I did it - I made it through my year+ of living in a place I didn't want to live.  Have you ever had an experience where you listen to an artist's album and feel like it was written for you?  That has been my experience when listening to Ingrid Michaelson's newest album, Lights Out, which I highly recommend.  Even though my mom isn't going to know a single song so probably won't enjoy listening to it as much as I will, that will be the first album we listen to on our way out of Charlotte.  I'm sprinkling lyrics from the song "Afterlife" throughout this post as they speak so well of how I feel as I prepare to leave Charlotte.

We are
We are going to be alright
We got
We got we always got the fight in us

We are
We are
We are going to live tonight
Like there's no tomorrow
'Cause we're the afterlife

I know it sounds melodramatic to say this, but there were times during this year in Charlotte where I really wondered if I was going to be alright.  It was a year of me treading water in a rough ocean, thinking, "for the love of God, would someone just throw me a life jacket."  I think it was particularly frustrating for my parents and close friends because they saw me struggling but they couldn't do anything to make it stop.  I've been on the other of this and know how hard it is to watch someone struggle and to feel unable to help them.

Living like you're dying
Isn't living at all
Give me your cold hands
Put them on my hearti
Raise a glass to everyone
Who thinks they'll never make it through
This life
To live a brand new start

The past 4 weeks have been healing for me.  I've let go of some of the sense of heaviness that I've been carrying around since last January when I found out about my move.  I feel happier, lighter, more free (for the most part... My frustration with my car accident has set me back a bit on the 'calm' front).  But I know that fully healing from this year of struggles, from my health issues to living in Charlotte to other challenges in my personal life, will not happen over night.  Or in 6 weeks.  Or maybe not even in a year. 

We are
We are going to be alright
We got
We got we always got the fight in us

We are
We are
We are going to live tonight
Like there's no tomorrow
'Cause we're the afterlife

Right now I want to metaphorically box up the experiences of the past year and put them behind a closed door, and lock that door.  I want to put them behind me and focus on the good times ahead of me.  I think one day I will want or need to take that box of memories and experiences out of that locked room and sort through them in order to completely move on from this year, but now is not the time for that. 

Every time I close my eyes
I hear your favorite song
Telling me not run
Not to worry anymore
I can't hold on tight
To nothing better than the rest
So it's now
Or never more

There will be nothing bittersweet about tonight, my last night in Charlotte.  Sure there are things I will miss about North Carolina, like the mountains, hiking, and the friends I've made here, but for the most part, I am just so happy and thankful that I get to close out this chapter of my life and start a new one. 

If it was legal to consume champagne while driving, my mom and I would be toasting as we pull away from Charlotte, but toasting our lattes/coffees will have to suffice.  So if you hear a faint shout of joy around 8 am EST tomorrow morning, that's the exclamation of joy I'll be making when Charlotte is in my rear view mirror.

Here's to new beginnings in a city I love!! 

One Year

It's April 8th.

Do you know what that means?  That means that I survived my year in Charlotte and it means that if I was to find a job opportunity, I can now resign with no financial ramifications. I think back on the weekend that I moved to Charlotte, the endless tears that ran down my face when Phil dropped me off at the airport, the I'm-crying-so-hard-I-can't-talk conversations with my mom and Phil, the awful feeling when it really hit me that I was actually going to have to live in a place I didn't want to live, and I almost feel all the anguish all over again.There were certainly times that I questioned how I'd get through the year in one piece, but 365 days later, I'm still standing.
   
Am I the same person I was a year ago?  Absolutely not.  I am sure that friends and family who spend a decent amount of time around me would say I am quieter and more reserved.  I'm weary and less likely to laugh.  I feel like I've been in a holding pattern for the last year of my life and I've lost my sense of permanence, which is bound to wear on a person. 

My mind feels like it's always turning, obsessing over questions like: when will I move?  Will my company enforce my non-compete?  Will I get a relocation package?  How will I handled the gap in health insurance (going without is no longer an option thanks to my $2,500/month RA drug)? Where will I live when I move?  How much will the move cost me if I don't get a relocation package?  Have I saved enough?  Will I easily find a rheumatologist that I like? ... and the questions go on and on.  And thinking through all these questions is exhausting.  Not having answers to critical questions is difficult.  Not knowing where I will be living 1 or 3 or 6 months from now is an awful feeling for a planner like me.

When I look back on the past year, I see it as a year of survival.  A year of doing what I needed to do to make it through each week or month.  I know there are people who can go through difficult things and thrive in those situations, but I can't say that was the case for me.  I did not thrive in Charlotte.  And I'll never look back on this year and be thankful that I was moved to Charlotte - of that I am certain.  Yes, I've had great adventures, saw new places, visited familiar faces, but I'd give back all of those experiences to forgo the disruption of this move and be right back where I was in Minneapolis where I had built a life I loved.

While I am not the person I was before I found out about this move, I feel confident that I'll find her again.  I don't know how long it will take, but with time, I'll get back to being that happy, confident, positive person.  Living in a city I love, being surrounded by people who care about me, and being able to run will certainly help.

I have hit my year mark, but I am in Charlotte indefinitely until I can find a job back home.  So while hitting this milestone was an accomplishment, I still have a ways to go and until I have a job offer in hand, I won't really feel a true sense of relief that I can put this all behind me.  But I am hopeful that I will have a one-way ticket out of here in the near future.  It scares me to have hope because it opens myself up to disappointment if things don't turn out the way I'd like, but I'm still holding onto hope.

It's been a tough year, and while it's changed me and left a mark that will be tough to reverse, I still think the words from John Mayer's song, Heart of Life, hold true.

Pain throws your heart to the ground

Love turns the whole thing around

No it won't all go the way it should

But I know the heart of life is good

On Being Home

My trip home last weekend was so wonderful, but was such a whirlwind experience for me.  I combined a day of work, which included a client event and a client meeting on opposite sides of the Twin Cities, a day of networking which included 5 meetings, I helped Phil move and settle into his new home, got my taxes done, visited a friend on Saturday afternoon, had dinner with 6 friends on Saturday evening, and after dinner I made a cameo at an engagement party that Phil attended so I could see his friends for a bit. 

Phew.  It was a lot to fit into about 3 days.  But that is how these trips always go.  And despite the fact that I fit a lot in, there are still things I didn't get a chance to do and people I didn't get a chance to see.  Of course the fullness of my life in Minneapolis and the fact that I have more people to see than I have time to see is a blessing, I just wish I was better at not feeling guilty about not seeing as many people as I would like.  Maybe this feeling of guilt is something that people who move away from home get better at managing, but it's a challenge for me. I also have had to learn to accept that trips home either need to be entirely friend-centric or family-centric.  Because my family and friends live in different areas of Minnesota, it's darn near impossible to combine the two unless I am home for a week, which is rare.

All that said, it was a wonderful trip home.  The temperatures were bitterly cold as the high for my time at home was a whopping 3 degrees, but I did not complain or care because there is nothing like being surrounded by my favorite people in a city I love.  I feel like a better version of myself when I am in Minneapolis and it's almost like I let go of a breath I've been holding for months when I land in Minneapolis. Of course the flip side of that is the tears that start when I board my flight back to Charlotte and often don't end during the entire flight, as was the case on Sunday.  Yes, I am that girl that cries on airplanes, probably attracting the attention of seatmates. 

As of today, I have 5 weeks until I hit the one-year mark of my move to Charlotte.  I know that seems soon to some people, because I keep hearing that over and over, but to borrow from a comment that my friend Nilsa made a couple of weeks ago, telling me that my time in Charlotte is almost over is like standing at the 20th mile of a marathon and telling runners that they are almost done (which is the cardinal sin of spectating, by the way).  Except it's worse in my case because it's like I'm at the 20th mile, except when I hit 26.2, the course marshal is saying, "actually, you are not done.  I know you are exhausted but you are going to need to continue to run for an indeterminate amount of time." 

So in the mean time, I'm praying, crossing my fingers and doing whatever I can to ensure that there will be a one-way ticket out of Charlotte in my future.  Each trip home is a taste of how good and full my life will be and I have to believe that I'll find my way back there.  Some way, some how. 

It's Been a Year

Well here we are on the cusp of the passing of yet another year.  Out of all of the years of my life, this is the year that I will be most happy to see coming to an end.

It's been an incredibly tough year. It's been a year of challenges.  A year of frustration.  A year of heart break.  I've cried in more places - both public and private - than I have any other year, and the year has certainly held more sorrow than joy.  It's been a year that has exhausted me.

But I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge that the year has contained some good things.  I passed the CFA exam.  I hosted one of my best friends for a girls weekend in Charlotte, and traveled to many wonderful places.  I got a promotion at work in the spring.  I made new friends and strengthened existing friendships.  I co-hosted another successful Julia Child Night.

But I look back at who I was in the early days of the 2013 before I knew that the year would hold an unwanted move, a break-up, a stress fracture, a lack of running, and the diagnosis of a chronic disease, among other difficult things - and that person is unrecognizable to me. I know she's buried somewhere underneath all of the layers of sadness and defeat that I have accumulated over the past year, but she feels a little bit lost to me right now.

But I see glimpses of the person I used to be when I am away from Charlotte, and those glimpses are encouraging.  They tell me that previous, better version of myself is not completely lost.  And at least I know how to get back to the person I was before the move.  I know that the way I feel right now is situational and when I get back to the Midwest, the clouds that have been hanging over me for the past year will be gone.  I will get that spring in my step back, smiles will come more easily, and the number of days that contain tears will dwindle.

Recently someone asked me if I would make a different decision if I could go back and do it all over again.  And as much as I'd like to say I would, I know that I couldn't.  I won't bore you all with the circumstances that required me to make this unwanted move to Charlotte, but trust me when I say if I could have avoided it, I would have.  But I couldn't, so here I am, picking up the pieces from a year of challenges and hoping to cobble back together a life I am proud of in 2014.

So here's hoping that 2014 contains more joy than sorrow.  More smiles than tears.  More laughter than anguish.  And more than anything, I hope that 2014 includes the closing of the chapter of my time in Charlotte - and the start of a new chapter back in the Midwest.

Tonight, I will quietly usher out 2013 (and honestly give it a metaphorical middle finger), but I will welcome, with joy, a New Year.

I wish everyone a very safe and Happy New Year!

Still a Struggle

Last month as we neared the end of our Myrtle Beach girls trip and approached Charlotte,  my sister said she had had a great time, but said 'I am ready to go home now.'

I thought to myself: 'Me too, sister, me too.'

But I am not home yet - I visit home for brief fragments of times, but it's always tinged with the emotions of impermanence. At the end of every trip home, I have to deal with the sad and difficult emotions of getting back on a plane to Charlotte.  7 months later, it's still hard. I still cry. I still grieve the fact that while it is not and will never be 'home', it is where I currently have to live.

I know I am past the half way point of my year commitment but the time just can't go fast enough. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel as I am over half way through my one year relocation contract, but I still have 5 months left (plus however long it takes me to find a new job).  I'm just so over the "I hear Charlotte is a nice place to live" and the "this is a growth opportunity for you" comments.  I'm over justifying and explaining why I don't like Charlotte.

Don't get me wrong - I am thankful for the great career I have, but I want more.  I want a relationship and ample friends and family close by.  And more than anything, I just want to be home - or in a city, such as Chicago - that I would be happy and proud to call home.

This last trip home was so wonderful but it was also a little bit harder than the other trips because I have no return trips scheduled; this was the first time I have left Minneapolis unsure about when I would return. (I will be at the lake for Christmas but I won't spend anytime in Minneapolis on that trip.)

There is no clear cut or guaranteed path back to Minneapolis. I have this one year commitment related to my relocation contract, but after that, it's up to me to figure out how to get out of Charlotte.  I know that like many other things in life, I have to trust that things will fall into place and everything will work out, but sometimes it feels like it's going to take a miracle for everything to fall into place. 

So that is where I am at right now. I am sad and tired and just so very over this unwanted cross country move. I have many trips to distract me in the coming months, such as trips as Paris, NYC and Austin.  And I am so very thankful for all of these trips, but no matter how many trips I plan or how busy I try to stay, it does not offset the fact that all I really want is a one way ticket to Minneapolis.

I know this post is heavy and sad, but it's where I am at right now.  It's my reality and I am trying to believe it is temporary.  But gosh, it is still just so so hard.

But tomorrow, I kick off my 10 days of Thanksgiving post series.  It's going to be really good for me to focus on the many blessings in my life right now.  

My Diagnosis: Rheumatoid Arthritis

Warning - long post to follow...

I don't think I have ever been so happy to see a long weekend arrive as I am today.  It's been a long week.  Actually, it's been a long month.  As I mentioned in my NYC post, I received a phone call from my doctor, and the news was not great.  She gave me a preliminary diagnosis of Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) and referred me to a Rheumatologist for further testing and a treatment plan.  The news left me reeling, to say the least, and I was very happy to have the constant company of Alli throughout the weekend.

I don't expect anyone to know what RA is - I knew very little about it until I started to research it after finding out that it was a potential explanation/diagnosis for why I have felt the way I have felt this spring/summer. To explain what it is, I am going to cite the words of Kelly, author of the site RA Warrior:  Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) is "a systemic autoimmune disease which attacks primarily, but not solely, the joints. It is an incurable disease affecting the synovial tissues which surround joints and similar lining tissues of certain organs.  Through a very complex process, various kinds of immune cells attack and eventually destroy otherwise healthy tissues."

How I knew something was wrong... 

As anyone who has read this blog since April knows, I have been plagued by foot injuries, one which was diagnosed as a stress fracture, another which was diagnosed as a hairline fracture.  I accepted the first diagnosis, but the 2nd injury in my left foot just seem "off."  I had been doing very little and it just did not make sense that I would have another fracture so close to the first.

But that was only part of it.  As early as April, I had been feeling pain in some of my joints.  I dismissed it as first as my body's reaction to the amount of stress it was under due to CFA preparations, or I thought it was my body's way of adjusting to the boot.  But then the pain in my arms and hands got so bad, it was difficult to do things like put on clothes, pick up my suitcase, open jars, or take the cap off of my chap stick. I kept thinking - what is wrong with me or what have I done to cause all of this strange pain.  When I would get out of bed every morning, everything would hurt and I honestly felt like I was 80, not 32.

I saw a GP in late June as the pain in my arms was getting so bad, it was really getting hard to do day to day tasks, and she diagnosed it as a case of tendinitis and increased the dosage of the anit-inflammatory that I was on for my foot injury.  But the arm pain would not go away and eventually I had to discontinue the pilates sessions because the pain in my arms was too bad for me to do anything.  At this point I started to wonder what, if any, physical exercises I'd ever be able to do again.  While pilates is challenging, it's gentle, so if I couldn't do that, what would I ever be able to do to stay active/fit?

I think the real tell-tale sign was the swelling in various joints - the worst of which was the 3rd finger of my left hand.

This is what my hand looked like

This is what it should look like

This swelling, coupled with the 2nd fracture diagnosis, is what led me to see my doctor last week - that and the prodding of my mom who felt something was really wrong.

My diagnosis/prognosis...

I saw my rheumatologist yesterday and he confirmed the diagnosis by doing a physical examination of my joints, asking me a lot of questions, and reviewing my blood work (which showed abnormal levels for a couple of different labs).  He is very optimistic and feels we caught this early and that there is very little chance of any permanent disfigurement or deformity.  He sent me home with a bunch of literature to read so we can make a decision about how to treat this.  He recommended a drug that is actually used to treat some forms of cancer - I would just take it in a much, much lower dose so my side effect should be more tolerable than someone who is using it as a chemo-treatment for cancer.  There are a long list of side effects/risks that I know I need to take with a grain of salt, but it's still a scary decision for me.  I have talked to one person on this drug and she said it has been a miracle drug for her, so it was at least nice hearing one person's testimony in favor of this drug.

I won't bore you with the details of the appointment, but I will say that while I was happy with his thoroughness/amount of time he spent with me, I was very disappointed with his demeanor.  Maybe I expect too much when I expect a specialist to show some compassion.  I just felt like he was very dismissive of certain things and unwilling to talk at length about other things (like my multiple fractures - he did eventually acknowledge that RA may have caused some osteopenia, making me more susceptible to stress fractures.  Hopefully the bone density scan I am having next week sheds some light on this).  I have decided to get a 2nd opinion, not because I don't trust the treatment plan he is recommending, but because I need to establish care with a doctor that I feel comfortable talking to.  I am sure he sees many who have more advanced forms of this disease, so seeing someone young with an optimistic prognosis impacted the way he treated me.  But while he deals with it everything day and is probably a little bit "numb" to the brevity of the diagnosis, it's all new and overwhelming and scary for me, so an "I'm sorry you are dealing with this" or an acknowledgement that this is overwhelming would have helped.

How I am feeling...

Honestly, I feel cheated.  I feel like I have done all the right things - I exercised (prior to the fractures), I eat healthy, I don't smoke, I rarely drink.  But none of that seems to matter.

I feel scared.  I don't know how my body is going to react to the drug I ultimately choose to take.  I don't know when/if I will return to running, or how far I will be able to run  when I do return to running.

I feel like it's all too much when coupled with the other challenges I have faced this year.  I just wonder - when is the string of crappy things going to end?  I keep thinking it won't get worse, but then it does.  This year has just worn me out.  

But, I feel a little bit of a sense of relief because now I have an explanation for why I have felt so crappy all summer.  I have not told many people about the pain I have been feeling or the exhaustion I have experienced because I felt I had exhausted the patience of others when talking about all my foot issues.  I told a couple of people but mostly I would lie awake at night and wonder, "What is wrong with me?"  So having an explanation of it - and hope that the pain will go away eventually - is somewhat of a relief.  I just wish the explanation wasn't a chronic disease that I will have to manage for the rest of my life.

What I need...

People keep asking me what they can do, but since all but 2 of my close friends live far away, there isn't much I can ask for at this point besides your thoughts and prayers as I process this.  I do need friends/family to acknowledge that this is a big deal and accept that right now I can't be all "rah rah, they caught it early, everything is going to be fine."  I know eventually I will feel that way but right now, I am sort of grieving the fact that my life will be forever changed.  I am not going to give into these feelings of grief forever, but I will for awhile.

The last thing is that I need people to accept and respect decisions I make about how I go about treating this disease.  I am relying on the expert advice of specialist who live, eat, and breath RA every day.  I appreciate the research family and friends will do on my behalf and will look at things they are suggesting I do, but ultimately, I am going to rely on the advice of my Rheumatologist.  Right now, I am not open to holistic approaches to treating this disease.  I would prefer to start off with an aggressive treatment so I can get back to living a more normal, active lifestyle ASAP.  Once the disease is under control, I would be more open to seeing what the alternative treatments, but right now, I'm not there yet. 

With that, I will bring this novel of a recap to a close.  I want to emphasize that while I am pretty down/overwhelmed/frustrated, I do know I will be ok.  I have been encouraged by stories of others who are living with this disease and leading normal, active lives.  I hope that will be me soon. 

I'll close with a quote that my Aunt Betty embodied with the way she lived her life while battling cancer.  I am going to try to take a page from her book and try to adopt this approach to life as well.  Lord knows, 2013 and Charlotte have provided sufficient rain for me to dance in.
 

NYC: The Weekend of Awesomeness

Well here I am, finally getting around to doing a proper NYC post.  This post could also be entitled the one where I shared a ton of pictures.  So here goes.

I flew to NYC on Thurday night to visit my dear friend Alli.  This trip had been planned MANY MONTHS ago and for the longest time, it just seemed like the weekend would never come.  But looking back, I think I was meant to be in NYC this past weekend because this trip fell at a time when I really needed the company and support of a good friend - but more on that later...

On Friday morning we got a slow start (after staying up past midnight, catching up and watching Project Runway which is an obsession that Alli and I share).  After fueling with coffee (for me) and ice tea (for Alli), we headed down to the Tenement Museum.  I had read about this museum years ago so was happy to hear that Alli was also interested in it.  If you visit (or live in) New York, I HIGHLY recommend this museum if you have any interest in the early immigrants to the U.S. and their pursuit of the American Dream.  Alli and I did the Shop Owner tour, which was so worth the money spent.

After the museum, we headed over to Katz Deli which is a famous NYC deli.  Their meat is GF so I was able to eat a whole pile of pastrami.  In hindsight, Alli and I should have split something because they give you SO much meat.  This place was nuts (and probably over-priced) but it was something I wanted to experience.

From here on out, I'll let the pictures (mostly) do the talking.

After lunch, we took the subway over to Washington Square as I needed to make some phone calls and figured this would be a peaceful, quiet environment to do so.  I just think the outdoor spaces in New York are so gorgeous!

After sitting in Washington Square for awhile, we headed to the High Line, which is an elevated park built on what used to be train tracks.  It's the coolest thing ever and another MUST DO for anyone who visits New York.  We walked as much as the 'ol boot would allow and sat on a park bench for awhile, taking in the sights around us.

It was a warm day, so to quench my thirst, I got a shaved ice.  This guy literally shaved the ice in front of my very eyes, and then they added strawberry and plum flavoring.  The flavoring was so fresh and natural, you could see pieces of fruit in it.  It was delish (and the guy sharing the ice was easy on the eyes.  Ha).

After the High Line, we headed over to Chelsea Market so we could pick up some caramels that Alli has raved about - they were so good!  The shops are so cute and the building is really cool, as you can see from this picture.  We once again sat down for quite awhile so I could rest my foot.

My phone battery died towards the end of the day on Friday due to an excessive # of phone calls/texts/whatsapp messages...  so sadly you don't get to see the delicious food I got at Colicchio and Sons where we had dinner.  Sadly, I did not site Tom Colicchio himself.  I might have fainted out of excitement if I had as I ADORE him.

On Saturday morning, I met up with a college friend who lives just across Central Park from Alli.  She brought her adorable 15 month old and we had a great time catching up on the outdoor patio of a cute French Bistro.

After parting ways with Alissa, we headed over to the Williamsburg area of Brooklyn.  The views of the Manhattan skyline was stunning and the weather was perfect.

We ate lunch at Smorgasbord, which is an outdoor food festival held each Saturday.  There were so many GF choices, but I went with a coconut daal and a beet-flavored lemonade (I adore beets, this drink was so delicious).  Not pictured are the french fries that Alli and I shared.  Yum.

After stuffing ourselves sufficiently, we walked over to Brooklyn Charm where I picked out a bracelet for myself and a couple of other things for friends.  While they assembled and engraved mine and Alli's jewelry, we went to a bar next door where I had an awesome drink that had muddled peach and ginger.  I mean nothing says vacation like drinking a cocktail at 3 in the afternoon.

Voila.  The finished project.  May be hard to see, but it's engraved with the word hope.  Right now, I am dealing with some tough things and I need a physical reminder to invoke this emotion.

On Sunday, we went to brunch and then headed over to Riverside Park, which is another beautiful park not far from Alli's apartment.  We sat on the park bench for quite awhile, soaking in the sun, until I had to make my way back to the airport.

Alli was a fabulous host and planned out a weekend full of activities that a local would do, sprinkled in with some touristy stuff (because afterall, I am a tourist).  And the weather was phenomenal - 80 degrees, sunshine, blue skies, no humidity.  I soaked up lots of Vitamin D.  Great weather aside, it was great to have back-to-back weekends where I was with good friends non-stop.  My soul needs that right now.

I know this post is upbeat and positive.  How can't it be when I am talking about one of my favorite cities in the world.  New York sparkles for me and it's can't help but rub off on me when I am there.  But while this weekend was amazing, it was also a difficult weekend for me.  I received my diagnosis from my doctor on Friday, hence the reason for all the phone calls/texts/etc on Friday.  I am not ready to talk about it yet, but when I am, I will share more about it here.  I am not trying to be vague here, it's just that at this point, if I tried to talk about it here, it'd be a post full of questions, not answers.  But, it would feel weird to not acknowledge that something difficult happened this week because I am all about being real on this blog. 

When I have more answers, I'll fill you in.  Bottom line, I am going to be ok.  I mean, it's not cancer.   But I am going through a rough patch and will be for awhile, and the tears flow very freely these days, and I feel like I am in this tiny boat in the middle of a rough ocean in the midst of a storm...  but I know I have to believe that calmer waters are ahead. 

Have you been to New York?  If so, what is your favorite thing to do there?  I can't pick a favorite activity we did, it's just too hard to choose.  My favorite thing was having an awesome sidekick/New York expert to show me around!

Another Layer of Sadness

I don't really want to write this post.  I know it probably sound melodramatic to say that and still write something...  but when things happen in my life that are critical moments, whether good or bad, I can't just gloss over them and pretend they didn't happen. 

I won't mince words and will get straight to the point.  Phil and I broke up over the weekend.  I'm sorry if some people close to me are reading about this for the first in this blog post, but news like this isn't the kind of thing you want to mass email/text out to friend and family.  Especially because right now I don't feel like talking about it or answering a lot of questions.  I just want to put it out there so people know and won't ask the 'so how are you and Phil doing?' question any longer.

I don't have it in me to write an eloquent, poetic post about the end of something that I was really excited about it.  Suffice it to say that between my cross-country move and other difficult things that we are both dealing with, the odds were stacked against us. I know distance can make the heart grow fonder, but it can also make the heart grow distant.  And ultimately being 1,000 miles apart and not knowing when/if you will live in the same city again was just too much for our relationship.  I've been clinging to the sense of normalcy that this relationship represented in the sea of change that has been my life this year, trying to keep this relationship alive, but it got to the point where I had to accept that I was holding onto the ghost of something that no longer existed in its previous form.  There were no unkind words spoken and no anger at the conclusion of our relationship, there was just an acknowledgement that what we have couldn't withstand living so far apart. 

All of this just feels like I am peeling back another layer of sadness in the onion of life.  While I realize that I have much to be thankful for and life could be so much worse, I am hoping this is the last disappointment I'll have to face for awhile because I have kind of had it with facing challenges lately.  Add in the fact that I'll weather this break-up in an area where I am lacking in the friend department, and the fact that I can't use my drug of choice, running, since I'm still recovering from my stress fracture, and well, it's just makes it all a little bit more difficult.

But I just keep telling myself that this, too, shall pass.  And I know it will. I'm going to try to stay as busy as possible to keep the sadness and tears (mostly) at bay.  And for now, I'm reflecting on this passage from Mary Anne Radmacher's book, Lean Forward into Your Life.

Growth and maturity exist largely in knowing when it is time to walk. Knowing when to leave.  There is a peculiar grace in knowing when it is time to say good-bye to a thing, a person, a system, a construct, a belief.

I often hear people speak of relationships at their conclusion as "failed."  Simply because a thing does not last until its anticipated conclusion, that does not make it a failure.  If a flower is crushed while still in bloom, it is not a failed flower. When a younger life is slashed off the planet by a knife or bullet, it doesn't mean that that life failed in its presence on the planet.  It is indeed a loss to those who remain, but it is not failure.  A relationship must be allowed its cycle and time.  Not all comings together are forever even though we bind them to that in our societal vocabulary.  The human being whose life is now lived far from my life and whose name is not a part of my name has his own story. And his parting was less a failure than a learning.

This will be a one post kind of week for me as I just don't feel like writing right now.  Luckily I have a business trip to Houston this week and a fun weekend trip to visit John and his family in Raleigh which will help on the keeping busy/distracted front.

Having It All?

While I have a lot on my mind with the upcoming CFA, adjusting to Charlotte, and working through this injury, I have also had a lot of downtime since I got to Charlotte.  And a lot of (solo) downtime means that I have had a lot of time to think over the last 6+ weeks.

I am too old for a quarter-life crisis and I am too young for a mid-life crisis, and I wouldn't use the word 'crisis' to describe my state of mind.  Maybe instead it would be better to call it a 'what exactly am I doing with my life' frame of mind. 

Years ago when I decided to pursue my MBA, I made a commitment to making my career one of the top priorities in my life.  Except my 25-year old self didn't really realize it then.  Getting my MBA just seemed like a natural next step and it was a personal accomplishment I wanted to have.  I did not properly consider the financial ramifications of that decision at the time.  Yes, I am financially secure and able to provide for myself and pay back my student loans, but the student loans associated with that MBA are a ball and chain around my neck that I tote around.  It dictates how much I need to earn, which means I have less flexibility when it comes to the kind of opportunities I pursue.

All this is not to say that I don't want a challenging career.  I have worked hard to get to where I am at and have invested a lot of money in my education and time into the CFA.  And I like to be challenged.  I guess what I am questioning is how big of a career is big enough for me?  How many sacrifices - like the ones I am currently making - do I want to make along the way for my career?

I don't really know the answer to all of these questions.  A couple of years ago I thought I could have it all.  I could have a challenging career, live close to family, and hopefully one day get married and have kids.  Now?  I don't feel that way anymore.  Eventually, I'm going to have to make some choices and figure out what I want as I really never see myself living in Charlotte, working in my position, and having a husband and children.

Right now, I find myself in a position where I am putting my life on hold to focus on my career.  Don't get me wrong, I love my career and feel fortunate that I can say that.  I just don't know if I love it enough to let go of the other things that I want in life.  I thought for the longest time that if I just kept focusing on what was in my control (my career), the rest (marriage and a family) would fall into place on it's own.  But now that focus on my career has led me away from my boyfriend, family, and friends to a city where I would never want to settle down and raise a family.  Thus, I feel like I am getting further and further from what matters the most to me.  I could have a challenging, lucrative career, but what is the sense of earning more and more money if I don't have someone to eat dinner with or travel with, or friends to spend time with?  And if I continue down this path of only pursuing my career aspirations, what am I going to have to show for it at the end of my life? 

I guess it was inevitable that I was going to hit a fork in the road at some point that would require me to make somewhat of a choice between my career and my personal life.  I'm not saying it is an either/or proposition.  I know I can have a great career and a great personal life, I just don't feel like that is the case right now.

So at this point, my goal is to pay off my grad school loans as aggressively as I possibly can so that I will eventually have the financial flexibility to possibly take a pay cut in order to find a job in a geographical location that is closer to my family and friends. 

Have you ever found yourself questioning whether you are on the right path in life?  I think I am particularly struggling because I don't really feel like moving to Charlotte was a path I chose - it was something I felt like I had to do to ensure I'd have financial stability.  Nonetheless, I'm on this path and it's up to me to figure out how to change course.