Tag: Arizona

Post purpose

8:29am, in my office, Phoenix Arizona, Tuesday morning. We have a meeting at work every other Tuesday at 9am. On those days the 8:15 morning call is canceled. I have a little more free time than usual on this morning, which is why I am posting now. My approach to writing recently has been to chronicle activities. I realize I don’t care so much for insight as much as I want to know what I was doing on a particular day. I want to recall where I was, who I interacted with how it made me feel. I want to use this space to remember time and place.

Back in Arizona

7:45 pm, apartment in Arizona, Sunday evening. I am back in Arizona after a weekend in Orange County. I got a late start this morning and hit traffic just outside the city so it was dark when I arrived back at my apartment. After eating dinner and unpacking the car I started a load of wash and put away groceries. Now I am checking emails and charging my phones. I plan on going to bed early to get rested for tomorrow. This will be the last week corporate support people will be at the office Monday through Friday. I appreciate the help but it is stressful having to explain everything and learn new systems.

beach plan

6:16pm Friday night, Arizona. Another punchy feeling day. I didn’t eat all day yesterday. When I finally had dinner last night it made me feel sick. I haven’t shaken that sensation yet so as I went to meetings around town my patience was short. Tomorrow I am taking my daughter and a friend to the beach along with the other dad. I hope I feel better by then. It has been a while since I have gone to the beach. It will be nice to be social and feel the waves again.

Wednesday night

7:39pm, apartment, Arizona, Wednesday evening. I have felt off all day. Edgy. Punchy. No particular reason, I just woke up that way. The in-laws plan for thanksgiving changed. We are not going to Lompoc. Which isn’t bad because that was a longer drive. Now I have to find a hotel in Dana Point for my mom. I will call her tomorrow and see what she wants to do. The hotels by the water are run down but have great views. Farther inland the places are nicer.

Time change

6:08pm, apartment, Arizona, evening. Sunday was the end of day light savings. In Arizona that means we stay put as time zones change around us. During the summer we are on Pacific time. In the winter, mountain time. I grew up in the mountain time zone so it feels familiar but I do lose an hour now traveling back from California. On a similar note Our office had a time change. We went from closing at 5pm to closing at 4:30pm (all the offices at the new company are on that schedule). You wouldn’t think 30 minutes makes that big of a difference but it does. 30 minutes means avoiding traffic. It provides more time to relax and the day is shorter. Change is hard but in that one small capacity things feel better. Sometimes it is the little things that mean the most.

Good day continued

9:57am in my office, Arizona. I am still thinking about the post from yesterday. The schedule I mentioned was created when I first moved to California 19 years ago. It was perfected when I was a hospice chaplain in utah. It is remarkable to think for all the dreams and hopes that have passed through my mind these thousands of days I really have only lived slight variations of one day.

Time and Place

6:08am apartment Friday morning, Arizona. When I was in utah I was wedded to that place. My body pulsated with power. I was invigorated by the energy, the sites, the feeling of existing in a perfect moment. In utah my job completely defined me. I was the unaffiliated Hospice chaplain from wyoming and I was proud. That feeling came to an end January, 2008. the job ended in 2009. I left utah in 2012. To this day my heart and soul still belong to that time, that place, that job. Now, I have been in exile one way or another for almost 14 years. I still pine for that place, that job, that time but I don’t feel the pull to go back to utah as strongly as I once did. So much time has passed and there is no hope to see the WIL. I guess Orange County is home now but it isn’t the same, it isn’t ethereal like utah. Maybe it will be someday. After all, I despised high school but when I graduated I missed the time and place terribly. Maybe when I look back at Orange County I will realize it is the place I am supposed to be all along. We will see. I guess nothing will ever be utah again. If that is the case at least I got to feel that great one time in my life.

Future plans

6:14am Thursday morning, apartment in Arizona. Three weeks until thanksgiving. My daughter has gotten into the show Steven Universe. We texted the last two nights about it. I have watched the movie with her and am going to California this weekend to hang out with her and get caught up on the episodes. On a personal note, I haven’t drank alcohol since Sunday, October 24, 2021. I plan to abstain until the end of the year. Not for any particular reason, I am just tired of feeling depressed for two days after I drink. I am sticking to my plan to move back to California in March (or sooner) I will either pay my wife to let me sleep on the couch or get a room in a house with roommates. I will let fate decide the kind of job I get and the salary I earn. Probably not the scenario I envisioned for my 50th year but it is what it is. I want to be in the closest place I have to home while my daughter attends high school.

Paradise City

8:20pm, Wednesday night, Arizona, laying in bed. “Rags to riches or so they say, Ya gotta keep pushin’ for the fortune and fame, You know it’s all a gamble when it’s just a game, Ya treat it like a capital crime, Everybody’s doin’ the time.” Guns & Roses, Paradise City. I don’t know what I consider success. I am not going to make a lot of money. I don’t truly want to be famous. What am I trying to achieve?