My name is Sarah and I’m a 26 year-old who lives in Florida. I just celebrated one year at my place of employment. I am an Army Brat and by the time I turned 17 had moved 13 times. I attended Virginia Tech for my BA and Master’s, class of 2006 and 2008. I live with my beautiful girlfriend Andy and our hound dog mix puppy, Henry, in a small one bedroom house (with a pool…be jealous). I love to read, watch TV, debate current events and political views with Andy, walk, explore, eat good food and overall just enjoy life. My dream job would be to become an author and sustain my lifestyle writing. Unfortunately, despite my mediocre efforts, I have not made a major attempt to obtain my goal.
I could go into a whole explanation about how my parents’ values, personalities and child rearing have shaped and molded me to believe I have to follow a set path, one whose value is measured by sick days accrued, retirement money saved and the timeliness of my bill payments, however I strive for different standards. I will instead give credit of my perceived failure, to myself, the only rightful guilty party. For, as you will find out over the course of this month, I am lazy and I make excuses. Already, in writing this blog, I have excused away even my least scathing critiques. I am lazy because I’m a Libra, it is inherent. That is bullshit. I’m sorry, but it is. Over the course of BEDA I hope that by writing down my thoughts, ideas and experiences, that I will somehow obtain a new perspective. Since it is merely day one, my perspective is unchanged, unchallenged, controlled.
So what is my perspective? That is a difficult question to answer. To a certain degree, I can convince myself of anything, but perhaps we all can and that’s what makes life so difficult. I strive for efficiency in my life, which is something that has gotten me ahead in work, but I fear has shaved priceless adventures out of my own life. I wish to be more adventurous. Andy will tell you time and time again that my first instinct has always been to say “no.”
Andy- “Let’s go to the beach.” Me- “No, it’s too hot, it might be crowded, I might get sunburned.”
Andy-“I think we should get another dog.” Me–“No, it’s too expensive, it takes too much work, one day in five years we may not be able to find a place to live that will take two dogs.”
I’m a worst case scenario-er to the extreme. Give me a situation, a decision needing to be made, and I will take hours, possibly days, to come up with every scenario, how to approach it, avoid it, mitigate it, and overcome it. I want to make a plan, predict the unpredictable; take control of the potential chaos. I am, in short, a control freak, not scared of change as much as completely opposed to it in theory, taking much time and thought and cajoling to convince that it will be a good thing. It is this extreme that contradicts my yearning for adventure and for exploration. My fear of the unknown (e.g. what will happen if I fail) completely negates my exhilaration and curiosity of the unknown and I feel the polar sides competing often and the fear taking over much more often than not.
So, how do I break this cycle? How do I take a deep breath and make the big leap? How do I quiet my “what-if’s?” Honestly, I do not know. But I think I’ll start small, I think I’ll try to make a decision every day and not consider the consequences. I’m not talking about risk taking, I’m talking about every day decisions in which I usually weigh the pros, the cons and even imagine how that decision will affect the outcome of my day, my week, my month, my life.
Ok so this post was pretty heavy…I’m not going to be posting shiz like this too often, I just wanted to give context to what I do post. I may be an Army Brat, but I’m far from conservative. I may be a control freak, but I’m far from high maintenance and actually, most people would say I’m pretty laid back. I may be lazy, but I think most people would also say I’m proactive and have great initiative. As you can see, I’m a life of contradictions. In some ways that works to my benefit, I am truly a jack of all trades, even down to my work ethic and political views. I strive for continued learning and higher level thinking. So, welcome to my blog and welcome to BEDA.
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