Sunday morning. Sitting in my living room, typing away on my iPad keyboard. Having a coffee, watching the news, hanging out with my cat. Thinking about the future.

In five months, I’ll finally be leaving this place forever. I’m excited, but I’m also a little bit terrified to be out on my own in the big, bad world. For as much as I dislike it here, it has become a familiar home of sorts. Unfortunately, it’s not a place where I can build any sort of stable future for myself, so it’s time to finally move on.

Lots of growth and change has happened here. I’m a very different person than when I first came here. I don’t even recognize the person they described to me from high school anymore. I am so different now.

This year has been a great time for change in my life. I can definitely state with full confidence that the unfortunate Holidate situation from last year was a rock-bottom moment for me and things have really only gotten better since. Sometimes the opportunity for that last little moment of self-destruction presents itself and you’re free to just take a dive down the rabbit hole. Mission accomplished there.

I started the year with a 30-day Hot Yoga challenge, which turned into an impromptu trip to India to take a 200hr Yoga Teacher Training Course. Now I am officially a Yoga Teacher. For real. I’ve been working my current gig for about a month and I’ve been teaching 3-5x per week on average. They needed a sub for the holidays, so here I am. It’s going well. I was totally convinced I would not be able to teach yoga at all, but I feel much more confident now after all the practice.

Since I’m subbing, I’ve had the opportunity to teach 5 different styles of yoga classes and I’ve even gotten to do an in-office “corporate session” as well. And by that I mean, I’ve learned how to use LinkenIn language to change “dragging a gigantic, heavy bin of yoga mats around the block to a different building on campus” into “hosted a yoga and meditation session for a small, corporate group to foster teamwork and positive relationships in the workplace.” Behold, the power of the pen.

I’m not sure what’s coming up for my schedule next semester. I can only say I’m planning to use this time to get as much experience as I possibly can and log as many teaching hours as possible so I will be more likely to get a gig in my new location. It will be hard to rebuild those community relationships, but I will have to do it with everything in my life anyway. The suckiest thing is that I’m not making enough money off it to survive, but I am going to take home a hefty paycheck this month because I’ve been working so much. Anything is better than nothing. I’m sick of living off my savings.

And yes, if you’re wondering, it is so much better than working at Starbucks. It’s actually the complete, literal opposite of working at Starbucks. If Starbucks is a cold, snowy, desolate wasteland with no sign of life anywhere, then Teaching Yoga is a tropical beach paradise with 300 days of sunshine per year. I never want to return to the tundra ever again.

Overall, I would say I made a major turnaround this year. It definitely started out pretty bad. That whole situation was pretty gross. I still don’t feel good about it. Team No One, everyone is a loser here, nobody won anything. We all suck. The End. Luckily, the entire episode was so miserable that it pushed me to take a massive risk I’d never considered before, go halfway across the world, and learn a new trade. Now I can teach yoga and English. Now I’m free to leave. I can go somewhere else now and know I can support myself without having to fall back on making coffee or waiting tables again. Maybe someday, I might even finally use that fancy Bachelor’s Degree of mine! The possibilities are endless!

Where to next? I don’t know. Paris, maybe? A beach somewhere on the opposite side of the world where no one can find me? I don’t know. I have 5 months to decide. For now, I’ve decided to finish out the month with my booked-solid yoga schedule and begin my job hunt again in Q1 of next year. I will have much better luck then, I think.

Not much more to say today. I guess I wanted to write again because I didn’t want to think about the Holidate anymore. I just had to remind myself how I was able to turn that entire situation around and now I’m moving onto a better place and everything will be okay.

I guess I forgot to mention… I am single again. He basically just up and vanished one day close to the six month mark. I was pretty indifferent, to be honest. I always felt like he was following me around and wouldn’t let me go even though I kept saying no. Lost Puppy Energy. I get it, but I can’t fix it, and I can’t be a rock for someone who cannot return the favor for me. I need support too. So, whatever. We met at the Yoga Shala, talked for a few months, it didn’t work out, but at least I discovered how awesome Bollywood is. The End.

Onto the next one, onto the next one, onto the next one, onto the next one…

Meh, who cares about men, really? I honestly can’t stand having them around. All they do is interfere with my life. Inviting one around is like inviting a vampire into my living room and volunteering to let it completely drain me and leave me to die on the floor. They don’t add anything to my life or bring anything to the table. They just take and take and take and take and then they take some more. I’m over it. I could probably live the rest of my life without another ridiculous “boyfriend situation” and be perfectly content. Ugh.

Now I can just focus on myself again and not worry about anyone else. Do I want to go back to school? What kind of jobs should I be looking for? How am I going to establish myself as a yoga teacher in a new location? Where should I go first? What should I do? How much of my shit do I have to get rid of? What do I need to bring?

Obviously, I do not have the time to worry about babysitting some overgrown manbaby who won’t lift a finger to help around the house but constantly whines that his dick isn’t getting sucked. I am very busy and important. Such a relief to finally be done with them all. Blech.

I feel the same relief about being done with this town. When Mad Dog died, it felt like the story had finally come to its miserable end. I completely stopped going out. The only time I interact with people is at yoga class. No more bars, no more trashy bar people, no more stories about trashy bar people at trashy dive bars. That part of my life is finally over for good. I am not that person anymore. And honestly… I am so relieved. It’s like… I never even wanted to come here in the first place, then I had to go through all this dumb shit just to write a book no one actually wants to read unless they’re trying to start more drama, and now it’s finally done, over, finished for good. No more books. No more stories. I am free to be whoever I want now. I don’t have to be a writer anymore. I am free to be me, in whatever form or iteration my self takes next.

Going to get some things done around the house now. Farewell, for now. Until I decide to update again…