I'm old in a young city!

I turned 26 last week...AWESOME. I am now a fully-fledged working adult in his late mid-twenties. To be honest, 26 is turning out to feel exactly the opposite to how I thought it would...I'm actually quite happy about this new age...but this isn't really about my age. It's more about what I'm gonna do during this year.

So I had a frightening experience in the San Diego area a couple weeks ago. As I'm riding shotty around Encinitas and enjoying the company of ridiculously awesome people I began to actually NOT LIKE Orlando. Whoa whoa whoa...yes I realize this goes against everything I just said [*by "just" I mean 3 months ago in my last blog post, naturally] but, hold on, I can explain myself. The grass is always greener on the other side. Except, in this case, there wasn't really much grass. Just beach, rocks, and cliffs. And awesomeness.

I basically live to experience so, you see, for me there's something unavoidably enjoyable about new experiences and environments. Somewhere amidst the awe-inspiring geology and the refreshing coastal culture the idea that I live in a boring place crept into my head. I mean, let's be honest here...I live in a place where the steepest slope to be found is on ADA sidewalk ramps and finding anything built before Disney is getting harder and harder by the minute.

So I've been locked in thought ever since, trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong here. Trying to figure out why I was so down on my beloved DtO and had fallen in love with a city that is 3000 miles away and, truth be told, not so appealing economically or logistically. I'll nip the thought process and cut to my conclusions.

First of all, I've spent the last 17 months holed up in nightclubs and highrise condos consuming what was, in hindsight, preposterous amounts of vodka. I'm not a drunk and I know my limits but really, what I've managed to put down lately is downright impressive. For the last 7 months my daily commute has consisted of a two block stroll to work and back. Lunch is at Publix downstairs or maybe a restaurant on Central. Dinner is at Publix downstairs or maybe a restaurant on Central. The party is at my condo, or a bar in the CBD, or both. I've kept myself in a pretty homogeneous environment which has resulted in a pretty homogeneous state of mind. This turns out to be the true foundation of what was a brief discontent with Orlando and what it has to offer, and in realizing this I found a little jewel that's allowed me to let go of what quickly turned into an overwhelming desire to drop everything and move out of state.

Check this. I got back from Cali and was all like, "man this place [Florida] sucks!" I had just experienced so much that I had never experienced and I was hurtin' something fierce when I got back to the daily grind. I figured it was cheaper to think through it than to pack up and move so here's what I've come up with: I was infatuated, and Orlando still rocks.

I had to slap myself in the face. Dude, SoCal has just as much potential to be home to an extremely boring, unfulfilling, one-dimensional life as any other place in the world. Wellll..I'm gonna have to subset places like Siberia, the Sahara, both arctic poles, and Los Angeles out to make that statement true. I would inevitably get bored with the zen gardens, surfers, and frigid ocean and have to go through the same process I'm going through here. Not the weather, though. I'd never get tired of that. It was perfect. Almost fake. Just weird, to be honest.

Also, I have learned a hard lesson about Life in DtO. I haven't been too careful and those routines that I mentioned earlier, while pretty damn fun (and let's not forget convenient!!), really flatlined my lifestyle. Now I've made a resolution to ensure that I don't put myself in a position of temporary insanity again (due to an impending enrollment in grad school...again...I'm pretty much stuck here for a while even if I wanted to leave). I am now making it a point to get back in touch with Orlando and all it has to offer and just enjoying doing it from the quintessential center of it all. Enjoying this city is all about seeking out that which is not emblazoned upon t-shirts and marketed to out-of-towners. This is something I've always known but have somehow lost track of. There are places right here in downtown that I've never been. Yeah...that doesn't make any sense...this place is tiny. So for 2010 I'm going to go everywhere. Yup. Everywhere.

Also, I'm gonna try and post more often. Promise. Even though nobody's reading, haha.