I'll Be 33 This Year...

...and I've been married almost 6 years (10+ years of relationship, one more if you add pre-romance friendship), drastically changed careers, started and run a successful consultancy that kept me self-employed for over 4 years, moved across the country, became a parent twice, bought and remodeled a house, got a new full-time job with a fair amount of freelance work carrying over, have almost sold the house and closed on a new place, and only now I've learned that really, I can't do it all by myself.

And can I just say how fucking good it feels to let that unwind a bit? I mean, fuck me! So yeah, this year has been pretty nuts in the juggling department. And I'm glad to say that with the support of my lovely wife, I've started putting some boundaries around many areas including essentially hibernating my consultancy. When I took this new gig I initially had the idea that I would be able to pull a night or 2 here and get everything done. It just ain't possible; there's not enough time and quite frankly, when work starts coming upstairs with me, I'm done. Just not sure why it took so damn long to figure it out ;)

Anyhow, so big changes here. In a couple of weeks we'll be out of this house and on to the new place. There's a lot of mixed feelings about it. This place is comfortable. We've done a lot of work on it; I know it well. I know the places that are solid, and where there's issues. I know the junction box to look in for a loose wire on the smoke alarms (the electricians did a shitty job there and my fix wasn't very much better, and I just figured this one out a week or so ago anyway), I know why the shower drain pipes leak a couple drops now and again (I glued 'em and did a shitty job but was burned out on house stuff). I know which deck joists are a little off, where I mis-drilled the first ledger bolts, etc, etc, etc. There's a deep level of familiarity all around. And convenience, too with our to town.

And we're leaving this little nest to head up to the hills to a place that needs *a lot* of work. Not in the sense that this place did, I mean, it's totally livable now, but to get it to where we want it to be will be substantial. I knew this the first time we went up there, though it was more like a factual regurgitation checklist: roofs need replacing, shed-to-office conversion, barn-to-home conversion, remove those trees, gardens here and here, orchard here, wood shed here, need to install woodstoves, need to figure out some way to get off burning hydrocarbons all the time, etc, etc, etc. None of that really mattered because I was so in love with the place. And now, I dunno, it's sunk in. I wouldn't say it sunk in to the point where I'm thinking we're making a mistake, because I don't think we are, there's been *a lot* of guidance to this place in many ways that when I listen to and follow even if it doesn't make cognitive sense always has a way of clicking into discrete pieces in hindsight. Don't mean it ain't scary at times though. Seems to be what happens when one dreams big and then chases those dreams down. Sometimes it's scary. And sometimes I feel lost and doubtful.

And then again, Burning Man is just around the corner, and if there's anything I'm not doubtful about, it's getting my ass back out to the playa for a few days this year. We just finished up the 3rd season of Grey's Anatomy and on the writers' blog, I found this:

So that?s it. That was our season. I did my level best to burn it all down this season, to burn it to the ground so that we can have a place to build from next season. Burning it down was hard.

I love it!!! I was talked to a coworker about BM last week (she's never been). She was curious what I like about it. In some ways BM is pretty excessively stupid: tens of thousands of people trekking out to the desert and essentially bringing their city lifestyles with them for an experiment in temporal expression culminating in burning large and small wooden structures. Pretty stupid, though also amazingly stunning; build it up, experience it to the absolute fullest extent possible, then watch it burn to the ground. Sort of a nihilstic slant on seasonality or something ;) Regardless, I'm fired up to go back out, and in a much better emotional space this year to celebrate more than the recouperate I so desparately needed last summer.

In the interest of finishing this post I'll tie it off here, though perhaps come back around in the next few days with some family updates; Liam's now 1, Raelin's almost 4, and the antics are keeping Kel and I rollig with laughter, banging our heads against the wall in frustration, questioning in self doubt, and mopping the overflow from our hearts off the floor. Indeed life is full full full ;)