How Did We Get Here? Part Two

I have been meaning to put this up, but the last couple days have been full of suck and I've acted in a very non-Swedish Chef sort of way. Not that I'm trying to go all Pollyanna-ish here, but I do think the Swedish Chef is not the kind of guy who would lie down in bed all day hating life and then, when someone rear-ends the car he just bought, write a facebook post about being struck by lightning, because shit, if something else could go wrong... it would probably be lightning. Even though I have not seen a single rain cloud in California. Either way, you won't really be able to understand why everything is full of suck until I go on and explain the rest of how we got here.

When I last left off, there was the overall feeling that something has to be done otherwise I will gradually go insane, become a corporate slave, and make lots of money but be completely and utterly miserable.

Will had, for some time, wanted to move to California to move his stand-up career along*, and I, being completely lost after realizing I probably was not going to become a well-read travel journalist, had no particular dream in mind. It was like going back to junior year of high school, where you're expected to take the ACT (or SAT, depending on where you live) and then apply for all these schools and tell these college application evaluators that you've "always wanted to become a rocket scientist" or a veterinarian, or a post office worker, or whatever it is. But quite frankly, besides the bold "making the world a better place" statement, I had nothing. I liked to write, so I went to school for writing.

Fast forward several years, and I'm in the same place of what the fuck am I supposed to be doing with my life!?, now with a degree and a job in PR. So naturally, I started looking for work out in California, since that's where Will wanted to go and hell, I didn't know what I was doing, so why not?

One day, I was explaining some of this feeling of what should I be doing?! to someone I'd consider a bit of a mentor. Schuy is a former colleague, who is the sort of person who is so free-spirited that she inspires people around her to just be themselves and live life to the fullest no matter what anyone else thinks. I wish everyone could know someone like Schuy, because she's always an absolute joy to be around, and she has never really turned into a grown-up** so that's a big plus.

Anyway, Schuy recommended I check out Americorps. Which I did, and totally and completely fell in love with the idea of doing something meaningful and devoting my life to a year of service. I may not know what I want to do for the rest of my life, but I knew that this was what my heart desired. So... within a month, I had started the very lengthy and exhausting application process.

I highly doubt the Swedish Chef faced such an tedious application to be a chef! Harumph.

To be continued...

*I have always been envious of him for knowing exactly what he wants and singlehandedly ignoring and/or fighting off anyone who seems to think he should do things differently.

**By grown-up, I do not mean someone who has reached the age of 18, but rather someone who has decided that certain things in life are certain, like death and paying taxes and working that-job-you-hate-to-pay-the-bills and generally behaving like a complete ass because adult life wasn't what he/she envisioned when he/she was a child so now he/she is completely disillusioned. This is the sort of pathway I was rapidly careening down and the one Schuy has incredibly and amazingly avoided for a very long time.