Army Trail Road

I was on yet another hiatus from Blipfoto until now. Last Friday, I Googled myself and found a blip entry from January 2009. From there, I looked at every single photo and entry I posted up to the present. I could not help but reminisce over how much fun it was to seek an opportunity to snap an unique and interesting photo on a daily basis, and then take the time to draft a post with my musings of the day.

A wave of nostalgia and slight disappointment also hit me while looking at my previous blips. I used to have such a life! I traveled, drank, created, explored, laughed, mulled over a wide variety of things, met people from all over the country, embarked on crazy and spontaneous missions, and just lived my life to the fullest. I woke up every day not knowing what I'd see and experience that very day.

Now, it's different. From Monday to Friday, I wake up at 6:30, take a shower, get dressed, feed my cats, then drive to work. I work at my desk from 8:30 to 12:00, eat lunch, then resume working at my desk from 1:00 to 5:00. Then I go home and cook dinner then do whatever I want, but by that point, I would be too tired to do anything exciting. The only time I actually live my life is when I'm with Jeff and during the weekends. If it were up to me, Jeff and I could just travel every single day and just explore, ride, and absorb all the beauty of the world. While I'm grateful for having a job, I've discovered that being a nine-to-fiver is definitely soul-sucking. I am allowed 2 weeks of vacation, 2 sick days, and 3 floating holidays per year. That's only 15 days of living your life (not counting weekends) per year. How depressing. How so not me. Despite it all, it is a job (at a great company, needless to say), so I am grateful for it.

However, I've also noticed that I don't feel the impulse to be creative anymore. This realization pains me very much. I want to show the world who I really am, and I can't achieve that by spending more than 40 hours a week chained to my desk, mulling over numbers, discussing costs, shipping dates, and deadlines, and acting as if my entire life was devoted to this job. So I figured that the best way to express myself at the meantime is updating my blip on a daily basis. Hopefully this will help my creative juices flow like it has never flown before.

So, yes, I am living a typical American life with a typical American office job. It is what it is.

I have a motorcycle now. A 2005 Honda Shadow VLX 600. I've been making some remarkable progress on it. Today, Jeff and I went on a 40-mile run around the western suburbs, and I've never felt more comfortable on a motorcycle before. Pretty soon, Jeff and I will be going on road trips. I can't wait!

I now live in a small town smack-dab in the middle of a forest preserve. The apartment is great. I live on top of a hill, just hidden behind trees. Out of every window in my apartment, you could see trees, trees, and trees. Just beautiful. Also, in order to leave the town in any direction, you have to drive through the woods. How splendid!

All in all, life is good, and I'm very glad to be back.