So I’m really doing It, It being The Big Move. It’s the thing a lot of us talk about, but we don’t all pull off. I had to keep things under wraps with my departure being announced at work, even though I wanted to yell it from the rooftops since I decided to work on listing my house.
Control is for the un-brave, I said awhile back.
Man, I hung on as tightly as I could for years, well after I was sober and getting well. I was gonna dig in and make it work, even though there was always a little nag in the back of my mind going, “You have to try. You have to be brave. You have to let go of the things that aren’t healthy for you.”
It was never about a dislike of Sioux Falls.
Strike that, I don’t like the winters.
I don’t like the winters.
I don’t like the winters.
I grew tired of shivering through the deep freeze in January and February, feeling depressed, and when I would talk about that to practically anyone, hearing, “Well, you live in South Dakota, what do you expect?”
Remember, winter is a dick. Arrrg.
Sioux Falls has been really good to me. I have amazing friends here—I’d go in the foxhole with some of you, you know who you are. I got sober here. I learned how to be well here. I started running here. Alli and Joey came into my life here. I had fantastic opportunities professionally here the past few years.
Feeling like I’m starting to hit my stride is pretty rad. Knowing that I’m growing is priceless.
There was a time when I thought I’d screwed my life up to the point that I’d limited my options. I felt like “making the best of it” was as good as it was gonna get for me.
That’s a load of crap.
Growth is about pushing yourself. It’s about letting go and recognizing opportunity. Growth is about holding yourself accountable to be your best you. Sure, there are setbacks and you have to pivot, but none of the great stories started with, “And then she sat in her house on Walts for the rest of her life.”
Two Bitches and Jules will be westward bound next Friday, blazing our Oregon Trail in a sweet mini-van, minus the dysentery and typhoid fever. When I stood on Cannon Beach last fall, I wrote “Bitches” in the sand and promised myself Alli and Joey would be with me the next time I stood there. This next round is about investing in myself and making good on those promises.
