Decisions, decisions

Everyone reaches at least one point in life when a big decision must be made. Oddly enough, when I moved to Seattle back in 2005, it wasn't much of a decision. It felt like the right thing to do, so I did it.

Now, six years later, I am so frustrated with my life it's almost been unbearable. The big problem has been that I haven't been able to find a job that will work for my life. The cost of living here is pretty high and from law school and my master's program, I owe an astronomical amount in student loans. The job market here sucks.

For years people have asked me when I'm moving back to Florida, and in response I just repeated my mantra, "I'm not leaving, I love it here." But my financial situation has gotten to the point where I have to consider leaving the state. It's been hard for me to accept, but last week I got there. So when my lease is up in 6-7 months, I expect I'll be moving.

What I find interesting is that once I opened my mind to the possibility of leaving Washington, I realized I wasn't sure I'd stay here even if money weren't an issue. It was a pretty shocking realization. For as right as it felt when I got here, it just doesn't feel that way anymore.

I moved out for the mild weather, some gray skies, and the gorgeous summers. We haven't had a summer in two years. Last winter it snowed so much I couldn't go out. Some of the things I like the most about living here - being able to walk downtown from my apartment - would change with a long-term relationship and kids.

I've had a challenging time making new friends. Many of the people here are so passive-aggressive and full of shit that you can't really get to know anyone. There's even a name for it - The Seattle Freeze. You'll hear, "Oh yea, we should totally get together!" and then you never hear from them. Ugh.

Through the ebb and flow of life, a lot of the people I was very close to have moved to other places, are planning to move other places, have gotten on with their lives and families and our contact is diminished, or we've parted ways because I'm cutting dead weight out of my life. I end up feeling alone a lot.

As any reader of this blog knows, my success with dating out here has been minimal. Its' been great that I was dating, since I didn't do that much before I moved out here, but good grief. I think for as West Coast as I like to believe my approach to life is, my personality is very East Coast. These West Coasters just don't quite know what to do with me. I intimidate the hell out of them :)

So, I think it's time to go find my next adventure. I think this has been coming for a little while, but I've resisted it. You can only resist change and growth for so long before the universe steps in and forces you to accept the challenge. I believe that the challenge will bring me all the things I want for my life - Mr. Lyndsy, mini-Lyndsys, and a challenging and rewarding career.

It's been an interesting, trying, and amazing six years. I feel like I've grown a lot since I moved out here. I think I needed to move out here to do something on my own, make my own decisions without being influenced by my parents and family. I'm a stronger person now than I was when I arrived. More than ever before in my life, I like love who I am. To become this person, it's taken everyone who's been a part of my life here. So, to all of you here who are reading this, know that I'll miss you, but without you the rest of my life and all the happiness in store for me wouldn't be possible.

The only question left to answer - where do I go?

Tampons, anyone?

I've spent a good portion of the last few weeks laid up. My back's been quite the bitch of late, and the chiropractor I've been seeing, Dr. E, told me that the worst thing I can do is to be vertical. Yes, I was commanded to be horizontal. (Had the directive come from anyone other than Dr. E, I would have assumed he was hitting on me. But Dr. E is so sweet and innocent I half expect to see him skipping with a lollipop in his hands.)

Lazing about hasn't been so bad. In the last couple weeks, I've read 8 or 9 books, finished season 6 of Bones, and been put to sleep and given weird dreams by an audiobook. Yes, my life is non-stop excitement. I ordered a small plot of astroturf and am looking forward to its arrival so I can sit and watch it grow.

Obviously I needed to get out. So I got back on meetup.com and have been venturing out. Tonight was a movie meetup: Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Whether you have any interest in this movie, you should go see it. It was far better than I expected it to be, even after being told by a few people who'd seen it that it was worth watching. Never before have I cheered so much to watch a bunch of damned dirty apes beat the shit out of people.

After the movie, the group of us went to Tap House Grill for post-movie discussion and debauchery. (Ok, not so much on the debauchery...) As I frequently do when confronted with a new group of people, I whipped out my Dose of Lyndsy business cards. Back when I expected to go to BlogHer, I had 6 sets of business cards made. Why 6, you ask? Well, I couldn't decide which card design I liked the best. Turns out, I'm shit at selecting good fonts. They're all basically unreadable. Except for the original card design, as seen below.



Totally readable. However, it has a flaw I never saw until it was pointed out to me tonight by one of the moviegoers. As he held up the card, he said,"And this one makes it look like you sell feminine products."

Totally awesome, because well, I'm sure none of us can imagine anyone better suited to selling feminine products than me, nor could we imagine a forum better than Dose of Lyndsy to do it.

That said, anyone fancy a wad of cotton to jam in your bajingo?