Author: Sloan

Bittersweet Begging

/ Sloan / 2 Comments

Everything is starting to matter. Every little interaction is taking on the weight of the world and yelling from the rooftops that I’m going to missing out on something, or everything while I’m gone. This has been a fear of mine for years—the idea of missing out.

 

While I’m gone… this is the little phrase that continues to leave me baffled and confused continues to pop out of my mouth. Am I coming back? How long are you THERE, Sloan? I haven’t figured out the perfect answer yet. I’m committed to Thailand for six months, yet after that I have no other life plans. I can do anything for six months was the idea behind not signing on for A YEAR. A YEAR requires huge commitment (commitment is such a dirty little word). If I come back in April I could still get my job back selling shoes, I could still be involved in setting up that race, I could still train for that trail run in July—do I want to COME BACK?

 

Flash forward, or backwards, to yesterday; my second to last day at work. The Pride Parade danced down town and my friend saw me standing from the sidewalk, ran from her float and gave me a huge hug. Flash to Friday: 2.5 hours on the trail with my friend telling me how excited and brave I am, I’m not so sure. Flash to today, this morning, I’m up at 6am going for a run with some amazing ladies followed by a potluck party in the park tonight—all these people are coming to see me off. I’m not so sure.

 

All of the sudden each moment, each person, each little thing this town is offering me is sounding better than getting on a plane and running away to Thailand. It’s bittersweet, beautiful and begging me to stay. Yet if I stay I’ve failed, and do I really want to stay even if it was an option?

 

Then a friend, a previous college professor, a man who I bonded with over miles of road under our Bianchi’s tires every Tuesday evening, a man that left his wife in the US for Paris to study, sent me this:

 

Reminder

And that’s what I’m going to do.

/ Sloan / Leave a comment

This post has it all. The current 20 something generation’s view of success is SO different. And SO exciting!

Kayla Cruz's avatarGen Y Girl

My senior year of high school, I had the genius idea of taking AP Physics, AP Calculus, and AP Statistics, all at the same time.

I pushed myself so hard that year all because I wanted to earn college credits and therefore graduate from college in less than four years.

I did that.

I started working a full-time job at the age of 19 and earned my bachelor’s degree in two and a half years.

I figured that if I got my degree early and had some experience under my belt, I’d be ahead of the game career-wise and would be taking steps towards my journey up the quote-on-quote career ladder. If I did this, I would be a few steps closer to becoming the VP of some great company where my work would consume all of my energy every day.

That’s what success looked like most of my life.

I was…

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To Regret or Not To Regret?

/ Sloan / 2 Comments

One week from this moment I will be boarding a plane to Thailand. Well, no, not true-I’ll be boarding a plane to LAX, then to Hong Kong, THEN and only then will I be getting on a plane to Thailand. But you know what I mean.

People keep asking me what I’m going to miss most. Ya know, I have no idea—as much as I love my job, my community, my friends, my trails and my life here in Southern Oregon I think I’m ready to discover something really new and most definitely exciting. I’ve lived a lot of my life not wanting to miss out on anything. Being too afraid to leave and really follow what I’ve dreamed of doing, what I have discovered is that by leaving, or by not leaving I miss out on a whole lot more.

I’m ready. I’m scared. But being excited is outweighing everything.