I haven't written much about my life in San Francisco, and I'm not exactly sure why that is. Partly it's because I was out a lot wandering the city, trying to get to know it. Partly it's because I was busy at work. Mostly I think it's because I was a lost a bit when I first got here. Not just lost in a new city, but lost personally, emotionally. I am about to complete my first six months here, six months into a one year work commitment, and I'm as lost as I have ever been, possibly even more so. I'm more inclined to retreat internally and isolate myself with books and music and just stop even trying to interact. About one year ago I decided my life needed a change. I had to change my job, my location, or both. I was hoping to find a better job in Philadelphia, but as that didn't appear to be happening I decided to change cities but not jobs. Minimize the risk, San Fran is a great town, all that.
In my heart, I think I realized that wasn't a real solution to the problem. I'm the problem. I don't mean that in nearly as negative a way as it comes out on typed so plainly and bluntly there, but it is me. Wherever I am, whatever I decide to do, I am stuck within the framework that is myself, my mind, my fears and repressions and anxieties. Also the things that make me happy. As recent transplants to San Francisco are quick to point, you are not different once you arrive in San Francisco, you just walk up more hills. I made that up, nobody says that. It's still true though.
Anyway, I think I have become even more afraid of groups and new people and less socially confident than I used to be, which is not good. I'm even considering joining a study on anxiety disorders/male shyness. I'm not sure I'm that shy, but I might be. I have also become angrier, more annoyed at my own limitations and my inability to figure out how to address them. I had a conversation a few months ago about how i used to be very competitive and intense and worked hard to move away from that because I didn't like myself like that. Recently, I tried to change that, let that drive and intensity work itself back into my life, little by little. I was hoping to control it by training for a small triathlon which I hoped would balance out the intensity in other parts of my life. It doesn't, and I can't. I don't want to be that person, yelling at coworkers and pushing people to complete I realize in the greater scheme is pretty meaningless.
It's a little interesting because this is what i would need to do, what i would need to do and be to be successful in a large company, how i couldn't be at 26 to get things done in a previous job. I'm more confident at work now and with my own ideas, but I don't want that life. More confident in work, the same or maybe even less so outside it. Instead, it makes me feel like an ass at my little joke company because nobody acts like that, which is a strength and weakness of the company. Recently, I decided to do a little deep searching and decided I need to find a job I can be passionate about, that if I go over the top with intensity or passion it's ok because it's for some greater good. I also realized I'm tired of business, refuse to work with the government as a lobbyist or some other DC bullshit, and want something that is new everyday. After breaking these down as my core principles, my only conclusion was to become a teacher.
I don't know if this will make me happy, and I'm not a big fan of returning to school to be honest. But if this gets me somewhere I want to go, I have to give it a try, right? My other idea was to bike to Tierra Del Fuego (or just around the country a bit), or drive across the country and just drift for a while. And maybe I will, I can do both once I know the ed school and start date.
I titled this 17 little gold fish in honor of Colonel Aureliano Bunedia from 100 Years of Solitude, who after power and war and everything in his life finds happiness in the solitary isolated confines of a workshop creating little goldfish, 17 at a time I think if I have the number correct, then starting over again, lost all day in his own work and world without real communication or interaction with larger world. Some of us are destined for solitude, and it's not a bad thing. It's comforting. How does this relate to being a teacher? Maybe teaching is my 17 gold fish, maybe doing something meaningful will give me that. If i can't sit in a little attic room and write for a living, maybe this will give me the internal calm to be happy, confident.
Maybe.
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