Put Ollie in dog camp and whisk Ben off to Thailand for two weeks. Then we would return to the States, buy a tricked out Sprinter van and plot a year long climbing road trip through the country and see all of our friends along the way. After that, we would find a city that we both loved and Ben could enroll in an aerospace masters program, I would start an art gallery, we would buy a tiny little house with lots of windows and put everything else into a trust to grow with us.
In some ways, my journey this year has mirrored that escapist fantasy. I built out my truck and explored the country, Ben and I moved in together, and I've made a few more paintings. But the reality of day-to-day life is a bit more complicated. I have sought advice on the subject of what to do next and it is all completely variable:
"You find a job you don't hate, one that has benefits and enough time off to climb a few big things on the weekends each year, and you work that and make a good life for yourself"
"If I could choose living out of a van or going to LA for work, I'd choose living out of a van, LA will always be there"
"If you don't go hard for your dreams you won't get them, what are you working for?"
I am learning that there isn't a narrative for life, there isn't a plan. There's just what happens around us and what we choose to do about it.
I want to be an active participant in my life. I want to stand confident in myself again.
When I was living out of my truck, camping on BLM land it sure was easy to feel content about life. Back in Oregon struggling to find employment, thinking about things like renewing insurance plans and whether or not you can afford a gym membership is not so fun.
I think about where I've been and where I want to go and the whole thing just feels like a mess. If I could do anything, go anywhere, I'd move down to New Mexico where I would paint and ski all winter, hike and climb in the shoulder seasons and spend the summers climbing in Wyoming. Maybe one day that will be possible. Maybe that's my retirement life goal. Maybe that's a next year goal.
But that's not the goal for now. For now I need a job, some satisfaction in life, and a good amount of adventure.
I stand very firmly by my decision to leave the film industry in favor of work-life balance, but maybe I don't need to leave the creative world entirely. It doesn't make sense to leave behind the thing you love just because you had a bad go at it. I tried my best, I worked HARD, and I was successful- professionally.
Now it's time to be successful personally.
Emerson on travel:
Travelling is a fool's paradise. We owe to our first journeys the discovery that place is nothing. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty, and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern Fact, the sad self, unrelenting identical that I fled from.
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