What I Did For Spring Break, by Akaijen

I'm back from Costa Rica, and I can say how great it was in four words:  exactly what I needed.

This was my view for two hours each morning and afternoon.

The retreat was held in a small, rural surfing village on the Pacific Coast.  It was hot and humid, and my body loved it.  My skin cleared and softened, shedding years off my apparent age. My joints started moving again after a year and a half in a cold, dank climate.  I sweat quite a lot of toxins out of my pores and received the best massages in my life.  I connected with wonderful people, started the long road to getting back in shape, and gave my life a lot of thought.  In the end, I came to one very clear conclusion:

I don't want to restock my closet with Washington, DC uniforms: black pants, white shirt and a safe splash of a color offered by a neck scarf or designer shoes.  I don't want to ride the metro every day, or be a slave to my boss' every whim. I don't want to troll the salad buffets for lunch, and I don't want to dish office gossip over drinks at happy hour.

I like DC a lot, don't get me wrong.  It has all the big city amenities plus grass and trees that you could ever want while lacking many of the pain-in-the-ass aspects of other major metropolitan areas.  However, DC is ardently career-focused so much so that that anyone not moving and shaking in the beltway has a hard time being taken seriously by nearly everyone.  In DC, you are your job.  Plain and simple. 

I have been fantasizing about atypical jobs, or at least atypical DC jobs, for years.  I've always loved the idea of working at a bookstore, and have thought about learning to be a chef.  I slung coffee for 2 years in the evenings after my day job just for a change of pace.  I was in an indie band of minor note, and we dreamed of quitting our day jobs to rawk.  More recently, I was certified to be a yoga teacher shortly before we moved to Holland. 

You'll have surmised by now that we are moving back to the DC area.  For a time, we had one foot in California.  It was the notion of moving to California that first got me thinking about a career outside the office - they're so much more accepting of different lifestyles there.

In Costa Rica I was inspired by the power of yoga to heal, something I knew academically but not experientially. I arrived a broken and disgruntled person after a rough year and a half in Holland.  The stress has manifested in my body the kinds of aches and pains usually reserved for people at least 10-15 years older than me including:  digestive issues and heart burn, a near constant pain in my left hip, a weird knot under my left shoulder blade, and lower back pain that surfaces after shockingly short amounts of time walking around in decent shoes. 

After just one day in Costa Rica I was literally glowing.  Everyone said so.  I was naturally smiling, not forcing it.  When I saw myself in the mirror that first night, I didn't recognize myself.  Seriously.  I looked at least 5 years younger and happy.  I was happy.  I was doing what I really wanted to do.  I was particularly inspired by the massage therapist, a Japanese American guy named Kenny.  After a session with Kenny, people were so blissed out that we took to saying that someone had been Kenneyed.  I would do anything to help someone feel even half as good as I did.  Get your mind out of the gutter!

During the retreat B emailed me a job description for a non-profit in DC that covers an issue I really care about.  I figured I should apply for that job straight away, so I had B dig up my resume off my computer and send it to me.  There I was creating stress for myself at a retreat - WTF?  Thankfully, I paused just long enough to say to myself, "I don't want this."  I didn't apply for the job.

The position was appealing because it was for a good cause, and I want meaning in my life.  I want to make a difference, but by now I know I'm not going to be one of those people that changes the world in a grandiose way.  But I can help one person at a time to feel better, and DC and it's populace really need help perhaps more than anywhere.

So what I did over spring break was figure stuff out while getting myself sorted out.  When we move back to the DC area, I'm going to have a go at teaching yoga as my profession.  I'm changing course.  It'll be good.