I am beyond exhausted right now. I worked out for pretty much the first time since October. I will admit, I pushed things a little farther than I probably should have, but it was amazing! And now I’m icing my knee…..

Now that I got the first day back at the gym behind me, I’m going to have to take it easier for a bit. I don’t want to break/brake myself right away again. I’ve got to accept the limitations with my knees – for now.

I had a great dinner tonight with C. It’s masterful the way she brings things into her life through the power of her positive thoughts. I set some major goals for myself tonight and brought Carmen into it with me. I’ll lay them out for you now:

I am going to change the world. I am going to make a ridiculous amount of money over the next 10 years and spend the rest of my life giving it away. I will have nothing on the day I die. C is going to help me give it a way. I will never work again and if it ever feels like what I am doing for money is work, I will immediately give it up. I am going to have more fun than anyone can imagine. I will be free.

I plan on giving the money away in a way that will make the most good and be able to ripple through society in the most effective manner possible. I plan on reinventing philanthropy.

I found out this evening that my twin brother got a job. I’m really excited for him. I think it will be good that he has a schedule and routine again. It can be so difficult when you don’t have one.

My older brother is also doing really well. I texted him yesterday asking him if he was going to make it to my going away party and he called me back to tell me he wasn’t going to make it and wish me good luck. I’ve never been close with my older brother. A month ago if you would have told me he would respond to a text of mine I probably wouldn’t believe you, so to have him call me back and actually have a conversation with him is a pretty monumental deal. All in all I feel like things in MN with my family are on the right track and that I can leave here, tomorrow, with the knowledge that everyone is moving forward and making progress in their lives. That makes me really happy.

I’m off to bed. Getting up in the morning to begin this awesome road trip. A few days in Chicago with one of the most positive, wonderful people I know will be a great first leg of the trip!

Bon voyage, Mpls.

Busy day. I drove back to Minneapolis in the morning and took care of some errands I needed to complete before I leave. Tomorrow I have a few more I’ve got to get done and Friday morning I’ll be gone.

I got a group of my friends together tonight for a going away party for myself. I guess it could have been considered a good riddance party, too, depending on who you talk to. It was so much fun. I’m so grateful to have so many fun, good friends in Minneapolis. What a great way to end my time here – eating a good meal, laughing and reminiscing. There was such a warmth around the table. I’m going to miss them all, but it’s time I move on to the next chapter of my life. I’m sure I’ll keep in touch and it’s not like I won’t ever make it back to Minneapolis.

It’s pretty remarkable how this is all happening. While I had a job I would day dream about moving to NYC or Chicago, but finding a job and moving was such a daunting task. Now that I don’t have a job or any money everything fell into place perfectly to make this move. Soon I’ll be gone. It really hit home this morning when I left my parents’ house and was driving back to Minneapolis. I don’t know the next time I’ll be at their house. I’ll probably make it back within the next couple months, but it could very well be longer than that. I’m undoubtedly ready for a change and a new adventure. It will be great for me.

Tomorrow morning I am getting up, packing all of my stuff into my car and driving back to Minneapolis. I’ll be spending a couple days in Minneapolis and then heading off. It’s sad, in a way, but I’m really ready for this. My mom told me several times today that it makes her really sad that I’m leaving and she doesn’t know when she’ll get to see me again. I understand that it’s hard for her. It’s been nice that I’ve been in the Twin Cities the past few years so she can visit me easily and frequently. I’ve liked being at my parents’ house the past few days. I like the comfort and safety I feel while I’m here, but it’s time for me to move on with my life. I can’t stay here forever and don’t want to stay here forever. I’ve got to find something that engages me and that I can devote the rest of my life to. Well devoting the rest of my life makes it sound so epic. I really just need to find something I can do for a while that makes me happy. I could be wrong, but I can see myself doing many different things over the course of my life. Like I’ll find something I really like and then do it for a while before moving on to something else.

My knees still hurt from surgery, but each day they seem to be getting better. Hopefully by the time I make it to New Jersey I’ll be able to start going to the gym again and at least getting back into shape a little bit. It’s been nearly 4 months since I’ve been able to work out and even then I had to take several months off for the first knee surgery. It’s really taken a toll on me both physically and psychologically. I feel huge… like beluga whale huge. I know that it’s mostly in my head. I have gained weight, but nothing drastic. Actually, I’ve pretty much stayed about the same weight I was before any of the surgeries, but my body composition has changed a lot. In all likelihood I’m never going to like my body or how I look. It’s just a given, but I know that when I work out and at least feel athletic I’ve got more confidence and despite still seeing flaws before things I like when I look in the mirror, I’m a lot more positive than I am right now. I’ve been texting with this guy out in NJ. I’ve been out there 3 times this year and each time he sent me a message on scruff. He’s pretty worked out and it seems nearly any pic he sends me is without a shirt. The first two times he messaged me I didn’t give him the time of day because when someone sends me a barrage of shirtless pics I automatically assume I’m not what they are looking for. I’m not bad looking or anything, but I’ll never be an underwear model. Because I was heavier growing up and lost weight in the least healthy way possible my body is never going to look the way I want it to look – or the way I assume guys who send a million shirtless pics want their boyfriend’s body to look. If this was a year ago when I was doing Crossfit a lot and the disliking of how I looked was much lower than it is now I’d probably be ok with meeting him and just seeing how things go. Now I’m not totally sure about it. I still plan on meeting him, but I’m going to be very reluctant to do anything that would involve taking my shirt off. I mean I’d like to do that stuff, but really I just don’t think I can at this point. Maybe if I start going to the gym for a couple weeks and am able to at least feel better about how I look that would change things. I guess we’ll see. At this point I really don’t like how things look when I take my shirt off. Blergh.

Anyway, yay for moving on. I meant to start packing much earlier tonight, but ended up going through old stuff my mom had saved. Most of it was from high school. I tried to pinpoint when it all went wrong, but wasn’t able to. Things I found that I really liked: A note from my 5th grade art teacher to my parents saying I was very creative and had a lot of potential, a journal my 5th grade teacher made all of her students keep and test results from a standardized test I had to take in 10th grade. It was one of the Iowa ones. I always did really well on tests so it was interesting to see all of my scores. Nearly all of them were in the upper 90th percentile for all test takers and the composite score was in the 99th percentile. I was always pretty good at everything, but not great at anything. Or maybe I was great at nearly everything, but not exceptional at anything. Actually, that’s probably more the case. I want to be exceptional. I bet there is one thing I can work towards becoming exceptional at doing. Hopefully it’ll be expressing myself. Maybe through writing, art or some other means. Yep, I’d most like to be exceptional at expressing myself. Somehow.

I did find one other interesting thing while looking through everything in my bedroom. Up on the top shelf in my closet hidden behind a box was an empty bottle of bacardi. I’m sure it’s been there for over 4 years from when I briefly lived here when I was 26. Glad that’s no longer something I have to deal with. My mom came in and saw it and starting asking me about it. I had to explain to her that I’d hidden it and clearly forgotten about it a long time ago and that yes, it was empty when I found it. If it hadn’t been empty I would have never forgotten about it.

Gratitude List:
Sobriety
New Friends
One chapter of life ending and another beginning.

A few weeks ago I got the idea of starting a blog with a friend of mine. I was reading this popular one started by a friend of a friend. He writes and illustrates. As I was reading it I couldn’t help but think I could do something similar, except that I can’t draw for shit. A friend of mine is good at drawing so I’m going to see if he wants to work on it together. I could come up with the writing (with his input) and he could do all the illustrations. I’m going to talk to him about this more before I leave Mpls. He’s definitely the funniest person I know and I’d love to collaborate on something with him. If we had each other to keep each other motivated and accountable it could work out really well. Plus he’s great for bouncing ideas off of because we can play off each other really well.

I had an idea in my head about what I wanted to write about and tried doing that for a little while earlier tonight. It felt really forced to me so I abandoned it altogether. I think I’ll give it another try tomorrow during the day sometime. I’d like to have something concrete down when I see my friend again so I can explain the idea and then we can talk about what I have so far and how it could be illustrated. I’ve got a few ideas that could work well for one blog post or could possibly be broken up into more than one. I should really be creating an outline for them so as to give them more direction and structure. It would probably help while writing them if I wasn’t just winging it. So tomorrow I’ll sketch out a couple outlines and see if that helps with the writing. I pretty much know what I want to say, I just want it to flow well and feel disjointed or like the humor is being forced. I’m good at doing that in person and it went well in my stand up comedy routine so I know I can do it. The format is just a little different. That’s going to be my goal for tomorrow. It’s good to have goals.

Gratitude List:
My parents
My brothers
Not having to take allergy medicine

I usually write an update every night before I go to bed. Lately I’ve felt like my updates have been lacking – like I don’t really have much to say and what I do have to say isn’t very interesting or important. When I went to bed last night I decided I’d wait and update something in the morning (now afternoon) to see if switching things up couldn’t help things a bit.

I’ve finally figured things out for the immediate future. On Friday I’m leaving Minneapolis. I’m going to drive to Chicago and stay with a friend there for a couple days and then drive out to DC to stay with my cousin. I’ll probably stay with my cousin for about a week and then I’ll drive to NJ once my friends have closed on their house. I’m looking forward to a much needed change. With any luck new opportunities will spring up that I’ll be able to work into some kind of long term arrangement to financially support myself. I will never go back to a cubicle, but I can’t live on my credit cards forever. Hopefully I’ll be getting unemployment money soon. That will at least take some of the pressure off. This not having any money coming in is stressful. Super stressful.

Gratitude List:
People willing to let me stay with them.
New beginnings and opportunities.
The ability to continue learning.

I’m grateful to be sober for many reasons. One thing I used to hate when I would drink is that I’d black out and not know what happened. I would wake up in the morning with only a vague recollection of the previous night’s adventures and have to piece together what happened through conversations with friends. I’d always try to not let on to the fact I couldn’t remember anything if possible, but my friends always knew. I’d call one of them I’d been with the night before to figure out who I needed to apologize to, who I needed to avoid for a while and who I should just try to avoid seeing ever again. It wasn’t much fun. Since becoming sober I don’t have to do that anymore which is great because I absolutely hated not remembering what had happened or what I’d done. I keep thinking about yesterday and an experience I had that was similar to when I was drinking. I think I had a conversation with my doctor while I was pretty fucked up from the anesthesia and I have no idea what I said or did. I’m not worried that I acted strange or did anything totally out of character, but it’s unsettling to think that I had a conversation with her that I completely don’t remember anything about. I wouldn’t have even suspected I’d had a conversation with her, but one of the nurses mentioned something and in the instructions for when I left the hospital in huge font it said the elliptical machine is ok to use, but that I can’t run.

Gratitude List:
My parents
Pistachios
Not having to go outside in the cold for the next few days

All I’ve eaten today has been pistachios, carrots and mint chip ice cream. It’s been pretty wonderful! And, despite a lack of variety, I’ve eaten plenty of calories.

The surgery went well! I no longer have any metal in my body. Yay! My knees hurt quite a bit right now even after the Vicodin I’ve been taking. I was really hoping to avoid having to take any of it after leaving the hospital, but that was apparently not meant to be. Blergh. I’m a recovering alcoholic and this is now the 3rd time this year I’ve been forced to take narcotics. Thankfully I shouldn’t have to take them very long this time compared to the last two surgeries.

I feel like a weight has been lifted now that these screws are out and I can officially move on with my life. I talked to my cousin who lives in the DC area earlier tonight and made plans to drive out there next week. I’ll stay with him for a few days before driving back to NJ. I’m really excited! I’ve never been to that area so it’ll be a lot of fun. My cousin and his fiance are both super cool and I always enjoy seeing my aunt. It’ll be a great way to spend the extra time I have now that I don’t have a place to stay in NJ until February 1st.

I’m so grateful that my life is finally moving forward. For so long it felt like I was just spinning my wheels with no real direction while working a job I hated. It’s pretty remarkable how quickly things can change. I’m going to fill the next few months with so many fun things and people. I can’t wait to see what I discover!

Gratitude List:
My curiosity towards myself and the world around me.
Liz
New adventures

Forgot to update before heading to bed last night. On my way to the hospital now. Hopefully having all the screws taken out of my knees this morning. I’m so excited to be able to start working out again and not having this shitty pain in my right knee.

Gratitude list:
Metal free body
My friend Liz to drive me to the hospital
Putting my knee issues behind me

Stupid world. I’m done with MN and the New Jersey plan is scrapped going forward. I’ll be leaving for Thailand as soon as possible. There’s quite a bit to get settled before I can go – like selling my car, finding my passport, etc, but I just don’t feel like I can sit around here waiting to see if the Norway deal works out. Initially I wanted to have the Thailand adventure before it got so convoluted with everything else. At this point I’m thinking I’d be better off skipping New Jersey, forgoing Norway and leaving for Thailand ASAP. It doesn’t feel like the greatest of decisions on my part, but I’m going insane here and have to do something. I’ve been waiting so long for these knees to get dealt with and my doctor agreed today to take the screws out on Friday. I’d wanted to leave for New Jersey ASAP, but don’t have a place to stay there until February 1st now. I’m not 100% certain, but I think scrapping that whole plan would be best at this point. Plus that living situation wasn’t ideal anyway. I don’t really want to live in a house that’s being renovated by myself. Especially since it’s further from the train station. I guess we’ll see. I realize I’m a bit more upset about this whole matter because I didn’t get enough sleep last night and drank some caffeine earlier. That always fucks with my head. Oh well. It’ll all workout somehow. I’m going to sleep on it now and see if my head is any clearer in the morning.