Guacamole

This summer, I began to try new foods. Well, not new foods, but foods I "didn't like" that I'm pretty sure I never even tried. Onions. Guacamole. Black Olives. The list goes on. Turns out, I enjoyed a number of them (guacamole in particular). I don't know what it was. Maybe it was spending two years on repeat. Maybe it was a quarter-life crisis. Maybe I was just bored, but at some point, right around the beginning of July, I got up and said; "I'm going to be better."

A better person.

A better eater.

A better writer.

A better everything I fucking could. In the six months leading up to it, I had lost forty-five pounds, and I think I realized that the me I was, wasn't all I had to be.

I didn't actually do much. I sat on the beach. I drank wine, and I have been writing about it ever since. I thought. A lot. I examined every bit of my life. What I wanted to keep, what I didn't, and came out of it with what is, and should be, actually important to me. My wife. My kids. My smile. Without those three things, I can't breathe. Everything else is just decorative.

Most people understand the first two. The wife and kids. It's obvious. Where they fail is the smile. You want to sustain a wife and kids so you work your ass off, miserably, 40, 60, 80 hours a week. You man the fuck up, and do it. But, the issue is, then I can't smile. My world becomes grey. Now, I know what you think. Isn't it selfish of me to worry about myself above my family?

Well, I'm not.

I am just worrying about me as well.

"So," I thought to myself, in the sun, belly full of wine, "how do I balance the three?"

I couldn't find the answer (besides writing a book, and becoming an extremely successful and lucky writer). It wasn't until July had finally ended that my friend Jon, a rafting guide, inadvertently solved the issue. I was so worried about finding a full time career that other possibilities had never even occurred to me. I said to Jon one day while rafting along with him; "This must be a great job. Out on the water all day, doing what you love. How are the hours?"

"Eh, okay. I work another part time job also. Pays the bills, keeps me happy."

And there it was. I didn't need a full time career. I could work multiple part time jobs. Maybe bring in a little cash writing on the side. Maybe then I wouldn't feel so bogged down. I began looking for part time work (while preparing for a full time job I had recently been hired for). I checked the papers. The internet. Watched for Help Wanted signs while driving around. I was determined. This was it. I had it figured out. But, no one was hiring.

I went to work at the full time position. Fifteen hours a day, six days a week.

C'est la vie.

In the end, I didn't figure out the meaning of life, or the key to happiness, or any other great mystery, but I found out I like guacamole.