March Sadness

As I ate my protein cookie and drank my lemon sparkling water with the Mississippi State and Pitt game on mute I had some THOT dish. Remember that time in March of 2020 stuck inside, wiping down groceries, wondering how long it was going to last and if the world was going to end? I’m being dramatic to make my point. Those times sucked. Some of those days were filled with fear, frustration, and uncertainty, I did not feel like my best self during the pandemic. I was just trying to keep the train on the tracks (shout out to The City of the Rails podcast).

I don’t actually remember saying this to myself although I should have.

When I come out of quarantine I’m going to really live? I’m not going to take these days for granted and go through the motions and live for the weekend. Yet here we are, and I feel like I’m pretty much the same person I was before the pandemic. I’m trying to think of how many new things I’ve tried or new experiences I have tried since coming out of the house. I can only think of one. My wife and I went to a pottery class at Fired Up Studios in Golden Valley. That was in the first quarter of 2022. When my wife and I go out to eat usually we go to one of three places: Rockwoods, 3 Squares, and Smack Shack in no particular order. For date night, maybe throw in a little Edge or Hot Yoga. Because I’m a Virgo that’s fine with me. I do like trying new restaurants, but if I only have a $100 budget in a month I’m way more likely to go somewhere where I have been before because I know the food is good.

I’m working on developing this. I went to see Bryce Vine at The Fillmore on Saturday night. As I reflect on it, I’m kind of proud because that was a little bit of a stretch. We knew we liked 2-3 songs and knew the demographic was much younger, but the concert was a blast, and super fun, and I loved all his songs live. He’s a great and energetic performer.

I think the part I struggle with is I’m a realist. I get life isn’t always fun, some would say it can’t always be fun, you need to work because you need money, and yes you need money for food, shelter, clothes, transportation, utilities, and communication. But we also spend so much money on dumb shit or non-necessities. Don’t get me wrong I love the convenience of a good coffee shop. Waiting in line is not convenient, but hey sometimes you just want better than a K-cup. With all that said, I’m still guilty of living too much for the future. Do the “required” thing, the “should”, and “work/achieve” now and have fun and see the world when you are retired. However, I know multiple people now who didn’t live very long after retirement and I feel for them- it makes me sad that they worked so hard their whole life and truly thought and believed their retirement years would be golden with travel, friends, shuffleboard, and grandkids.

Others I know are retired but not in great health-many of them couldn’t climb Camel Back Mountain. We need, we deserve to enjoy some of the healthiest and fittest days of our lives too. More than that, I wonder if some of us have ever really tried shit. I think at a very young age we find or see a set of options for us to step into an identity and create an ego around. Those options are “go with the grain”, “go against the grain”, and somewhere in the middle. Depending on how easy we want life to be we go one way and I think we are all striving for attention. In that striving for attention, perhaps we lose ourselves.

For instance, I started playing football in 9th grade. I don’t know why- was it because I really loved football- probably not- I didn’t really follow the NFL or college football. Was it to try to be cool and fit in? Probably. Was it to prove I was tough? Maybe. Get attention from my dad or make him proud? I don’t know. I think these are deep questions and the answers do not matter anymore because they are in the past. However, we have the opportunity to impress nobody else except for ourselves, and in the Instagram- comparison world- we live in we need a tool to help bring “it” out of us. We are already enough. We just need to bring it out from within and display our uniqueness to the world. This is our opportunity to really ignite the fire, passion, and joy inside us.

Let’s dish,

jj