Author: Sloan

This is Going to be Good

/ Sloan / Leave a comment

I’ve always been good at procrastinating. Shit just gets done easier when there’s A LOT to do and a little time. When I have two jobs, class, volunteer responsibilities, and a training plan to follow I am happier, healthier, in better shape. I’m generally amazed at what I can accomplish. When I have three weeks to ‘get everything done’ nothing gets’ done.

            I sit here on a Saturday afternoon putzing around not cleaning, not packing, not getting ready to once again move my life. D-day is tomorrow and my suitcase of clothes and bag of shoes sit in ruins around my mother’s spare bedroom. After this post, I swear I’ll start the laundry and begin rolling my clothes to make them all fit as much as I’d rather kick back and not, I will, I must.

 

Back to Maryland. Thank god. Once there I won’t get crazy looks when I get carded at the bar and whip out my random Maryland driver’s license.  I’ll live near a lake, near the mountains and have work that will keep me busy and active, and hopefully another job that will keep me on my feet and social. I’ll play in the woods, paddle around the lake and explore the productive side of me that I have missed for way too long.

            Tomorrow I say goodbye to the flat lands of the mid-west, goodbye to the lake that stretches for miles and goodbye to my friends and family that have supported me. I’m excited and nervous and ready to embark on this new journey. I’m excited to say hello to the mountains, make new friends and reconnect with some old ones. This is good. This is going to be really good.

What a stranged shaped state

What a stranged shaped state

**More on where, why, and what next week. NOT back to Baltimore, I’ll give ya that much!***

Beverages and Other Things…

/ Sloan / Leave a comment

I forced myself to crack a new journal today. I have been back from South East Asia for over a month now and I had yet to write anything. I’ve hardly blogged, I went from journaling twice a day to not at all. This is weird for me. I’m in a funk. A full body and mind encompassing funk. Yep. There are other clinical terms certain people chose to use, but like many parts of my life I like to use euphemisms.

            I left the house, because lord knows I can’t concentrate here. Just like in college, I do my best work elsewhere. So I bought a fountain soda and I drove to a beautiful Lake Michigan overlook. I sat in my Mother’s convertible, I left the top 40’s pop radio station on and I opened up my pink polka dot journal and I wrote. It was nothing profound but I whined and complained through words that came out of the tip of my pen. I wrote a list of things that piss me off. For the sake of balance: I wrote a list of things that I like too.

            Lists are the best way for me to just write. I can always think of one more thing to add or a new list to start. So in this funk my list of piss were pretty damn negative. I was even pissed at the sun. The SUN is on my list of things that piss me off. (It was really hot, I had sweat dripping off my elbows.) But then once I started the other list things I like flowed quickly and steadily.

There were silly things. The first three or four things on that list are beverages. (Coffee, beer, iced coffee, diet coke through a straw) I mean, really… but they were all positive. There are all things that in this moment I enjoyed. And that is how I got through today and made it a not so bad day. Baby steps people, baby steps.

 

I like the tiny straw

I like the tiny straw

 

I’ll Take My Path, You Take Yours

/ Sloan / 3 Comments

Yupp. In the last two decades I have lived in four countries, 8 states, and 12 cities. Hell, in the past 4 years I’ve moved 5 times and am currently in limbo in my mother’s spare bedroom. It’s pretty awesome eating her food, walking her poodle and having drinks at the yacht club every Wednesday and sailing every weekend. It is, it’s awesome, really…sorta. I mean, it’s cool guys…I swear.

            We all, (by we I mean my friends who have followed my adventures,) notice a pattern of WITWIS (where in the world is Sloan?) People don’t understand why I can’t stay put, why I move, why I jump off and go to Thailand for 8 months and fuck around. I’m getting to the point where I realize it’s okay to say why not? I’m happy I’m not married and popping out babies. (that’s great if you are and that’s where you want to be, but I don’t)

            In a convo with my favorite record store owner yesterday, he reminded me that I’m young and it’s okay to be experiencing these things. Hell, we can’t take it with us so let’s do it now while we’re nimble, sexy and can drink like a fish three times a week! I want to climb these mountains while my knees still work. I want to soak in the views before I need glasses, I want to eat street food before I have to worry about heart burn, I want to stay in gross, dingy but cheap hostels so that my money can be spent on my next bus ticket to god-knows-where.

 

I’m told on a daily basis both sides of this story. The side that tells me I need to settle down and figure shit out, and the side that tells me that it’s okay to not know. I don’t believe either side. I don’t know who to listen to. When I’ve found myself in this position before, the position of feeling like I need to find permission within my community, that’s when I’ve gotten myself in trouble. It’s when I listen to my heart and do things the way that I want to do them, that’s when I feel the best. So let’s all go out and get rad tattoos, see something awesome and experience life the way we want to experience it.

 

So that’s what I’m doing, anyway.

 

Said tattoo

Said tattoo

 

Said poodle

Said poodle