Two Weeks

TO STRIVE, TO SEEK, TO FIND.

AND NOT TO YIELD.

Written on a chalkboard at the very end of the movie One Week. Interesting mantra to inspire me on this road adventure I'm about to undertake, to drive my car from the old Washington (state) to the new Washington (DC). I didn't think I was seeking anything, not even the inevitable adventure part, but I suppose it's actually a new vision quest I have begun.

While, unlike the movie's main character, I have not been diagnosed with a terminal disease (thank God), but we both seek new life somehow. My transition to life on the East Coast almost complete, I get the feeling the real transition is yet to come.

I mean, I know the move to DC was the right next step in my life, but it just doesn't feel as magical as it did before. I would get this visceral feeling every time I landed there. I didn't just walk down the streets, I would strut. (OK, I still strut.) This immense joy and excitement emanated from my pores. But now, now I am just feeling lost.

I don't regret the move. Quite the contrary. Yet, there's something else. Maybe it's the reality of my job, the stuckness of it. The monotany, the hypocrisy, the go-nowhere-bs that I've been dealing with the majority of my professional career. Sometimes, I'd rather stab the backs of my eyeballs with pins, or pull out my fingernails, than show up to work or deal with some of the tasks I have to. God forbid my boss doesn't get a Starwood hotel!

There has to be something more. I know there is.

I feel bad for feeling this way. I mean, my work has been pretty good to me, as good as they can be. And my boss has been pretty generous with me. Just like this trip to Seattle. I apparently wasn't supposed to go, but my boss let me still, knowing I was planning my drive from there. She did say we had to be mindful about budget, but is she? She's one of the the biggest violators I know, with her insistence on her preferred hotels and renting cars for $50/day plus overnight parking for another $50. To get to the office by taxi is about $10 each way. Talk about humble and mindful.