Phoenix has been a good experience. I feel I can stop running. That the last of my adventure questions have been answered. Before everything blew up last year I pondered moving. I thought about utah but didn’t think I could go back. I thought vaguely of somewhere else but didn’t know where. With Phoenix I now know what somewhere else feels like. That distills multiple questions. I can return to utah knowing what California feels like. What somewhere else feels like. And now I can know what coming home feels like. I am not in a hurry. I had a similar situation after college and seminary returning to wyoming. Going back to Utah might not be the final spot for me. But at least in the coming years, at some point, I believe I can work/live in utah one more time. I can go home

When I was the chaplain the problem was there was too much work and I would be overwhelmed. Patient visits, consents. I was tired trying to keep up with the workload. In sales the opposite occurred. I could not generate enough work load. I liked the first problem better. I need to embrace that work energy and deal with the busyness more

6:16am there is no reason not to have an inflated ego. To be brash and proud. I am the center of attention. It is all about me. I am strong, charismatic, proactive. Energizing. Fascinating.

I am stuck on the WIL I can’t move forward but I don’t feel I can ever be with her again. To truly be happy is to fall in love and be energized by someone else.

I want to move on because I feel she has but I can’t pretend I don’t want her or need her more than any other woman ever

Awkward addendum: today is my wife and my 22st wedding anniversary

I went out and did marketing on my own today.I like marketing when the energy is not direct. Marketing as a chaplain. As a director. Marketing as a marketer is garbage

On the drive to work the radio hosts were discussing the most searched drinks in every state. They mentioned Utah was a lime Rickey. Those are what the WIL and I drank on days we would spend together. Ice, grape soda, lemon lime soda, lime juice, vodka.

6:30am sleep was restless last night. I am not surprised. I have a stressful situation with a person at work. Until that is resolved I will feel uneasy. I dreamt about domestic terrorists trying to board a bus at a popular amusement park. They were fun over, shot and electrocuted with devices that looked like shock collars for dogs. I woke up at 1:30am and went back to sleep and had another dream about someone trying to forcefully enter a bus and was turned away violently. I dreamt I went to see the WIL at her house. She was indifferent to me. Her husband came downstairs and shot me eight times in the stomach. I drove myself to the hospital. I didn’t die. The dream just ended.

I continue to worry about job security. I fear I will sabotage the situation even if it is good.

Change the script: I am the leader. I am the best. I am in control. I am strong. Confident and powerful.

7:23pm I got out of the habit of writing at night. I usually get home at six, eat, then call my mom and daughter. After that I am tired. I also feel like I connected with people so the need to be heard is not as great. Been thinking about the WIL a lot. I always think of her

“Sometimes in my head, I can still see pictures of you. And I laugh to myself when I think of all the crazy things we used to do…”

Poison, I won’t forget you

On another lap around the property 11:28am the way I am approaching life and work right is now exactly where I thought I would be ten years ago. I am doing the same job I first had in April of 2011. I hypothesized when I felt my time being the chaplain was winding down that I would take a couple months to relax. I would get bored then do something else and embrace the challenge. The timeline was almost correct except for the decade long interim.

Going for a quick walk around the building at work to stretch my legs. 10am. Started thinking about my grandparents. Council bluffs, Omaha, Fremont, minneola, pickstown, wessington springs. Spearfish, rapid city. Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota. I spent so many years hungry for adventure. To know what was around the bend. I seldom stop to remember where I was. Where I came from. Nice to remember my grandparents. My brother and I were close to them growing up. We enjoyed going over to there house. Playing Yahtzee and skunk on school breaks when we were in college. Nice to have a different emotion and feeling about something else

Addendum 11:45am I knew my paternal grandfather more than my maternal. Actually I barely knew my maternal grandfather. They lived in Indiana and then he moved to Maryland before he died. I was 5. My mom doesn’t speak highly of him. Not that he was a bad guy. I don’t think she thought much of him as a father. But the way he approached his career is more like me. He would only stay four years or less in a calling. My mom was born in Michigan, moved to Illinois then Oklahoma, Missouri and Kentucky. By the time she finished college her parents moved to Indiana. Of course he was in ministry. I was in sales.

For the record I don’t miss sales at all. And frankly see the time as doing it as subjecting myself to abuse. I learned from my time in sales. Throw the pressure on them. Our referral volume has shrank. But I am not owning it. I sent a message to my boss and the area sales person the reasons we are slow and what we are doing. But I made it clear that the responsibility is on the sales manager and we expect his help. It only took a decade of setting myself up to be the fall guy to learn that.

6:21am nothing seems permanent or perfect. Not Utah, not California. The WIL, my daughter, my marriage. So much has changed so often the last six months. My wife and daughter moved out. I was taking a week off before starting a new job. I bought a car. My mom fell and went to the hospital. Then came to live with me. I lost that new job. I got another new job. I moved to another state. Arizona is good. I am in a good place. 2021. Arizona. This apartment. This job. I focus only on those constants.