Saturday, November 14, 2009

Chicago


This friday, I and some friends plan to spend a day and a half in Chicago. Not nearly enough time in one of my favorite cities. Why I favor it so, really, is beyond me. Not having lived there and only having visited twice, it is perhaps because each time I visit is a celebration, time spent with good friends and a dear aunt and a feast of art, culture and time spent in a vibrant, alien place. It's just too damn cold.

This will be the warmest time I've ever visited the Second City and I hope the weather will be kind. I plan to visit my aunt, see the museum and be gone in time to start the next work week.

Speaking of work. I am sorely lacking in this department, but it is not so simple as me being underemployed and I haven't really the words to voice just what it that has come over me. Have I changed, have I stalled - I do not know, but I become more and more upset each day. With myself, with my shortcomings, with my sudden lack of will and drive and movement. Excuses. I am lazy and, having been so suddenly dropped off from my illusion of decent work, I now don't have that cover and must actually roll up my sleeves and work. Can I do it? Of course, but how?

So I am going to Chicago. I do not intend to give the trip a lot of importance, but a change of pace is sorely wanted. My life needs to start now, to pick up. I need to go places, to meet people, to start something. I dally. With my future and my career, no less. I work to earn money but I am near content with the easy, mindless, labor and am near satisfied to not want anything more. But that is not who I am. Ambition, drive and passion are there inside of me and when released, it is a beautiful feeling, a wave that carries me from one moment to the next. But I dally. I do not look, do not apply myself, do not make myself known. Time is an excuse, but like all things, time can be made and the excuse is wearing thin.

It is hubris, though. How proud I was and how stubborn. I thought myself better, smarter and better positioned than my classmates and peers and now this. But I still have so much and have all my faculties to regain my footing. It will happen, what I need now is time.

New work, a new portfolio, a website and more connections are also in order. The furnace has grown cold and damp. Time to add fuel to the fire and let loose the fiery beast. Stupid analogy, but now more than ever I see myself as a great machine, idling, while the world moves ahead.

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