A Need for "Adventure"

I am in need of adventure. Nothing major or even extraordinary, but just a little daily adventure. You see, I work from home. Everyone says how wonderful it must be to work from home, but the reality is that it is not wonderful. It is rather lonely and isolating and throws you into funks from time to time. Those of you who work in an office, even in you think you keep to yourself, do not realize how much human interaction you get. And I, I am a social person.

My father once explained to me that I was a "social butterfly" and fit myself to every interaction. I didn't see it back then (I was 15 at the time), but I fully admit it now. I like to have an outfit for every occasion (despite my complete inability in the past 3 or 4 years to shop for clothing due to pregnancy and/or Mommy duties and that this has led to a scarcity of the necessary outfits causing me great consternation), and know what to say to who and when, and when at a loss I love to observe and figure things/people out. My favorite and least favorite things in this world are people. Favorite because people are wonderful and you learn so much from everyone you encounter, and least favorite because people can be cruel, selfish and hateful. (I avoid these kinds of people, who I call poison people.) But the only way to find out which category someone will be in (favorite vs. least favorite) is to talk to them and get to know them a bit. And that is where my joy rests.

Working from home has its benefits: no commute, no parking issues, savings on gas, no one to talk your ear off when they and you really need to be working but not wanting to be rude. But it has its detractors too: stuck in your house from sun up to sun down some days, no one to talk to, no one to have lunch with, only the sound of your dog or the clock to keep you company, the fact that you are technically "always available," not wanting to wear pajamas but feeling silly if you get dressed like you would if you were going into the office, etc.

Sometimes this doesn't bother me, but there are cycles of things where I end up in a funk. I realized this morning that I am completely in a funk right now. Other than our trip for our niece's birthday party this weekend, I only left the house for training sessions and to pick my children up from daycare at the end of the day. Yesterday I just wanted to get out. When I went to get my girls from daycare, I realized yes I want to carry my camera everywhere I go but I really don't go anywhere. So I took a picture of the view out of my office window and then discovered that the house computer won't turn on so I have no way to even download it to include in the blog today.

I think part of it is that Team in Training is over until next year for me, and it had set places and times where I would train with others. It sometimes was stressful to get places on time, but I loved being with other people. Now, most of my training is done alone. I try to train with others at least once a week, but it's not as "required" as before so it's easy to slip into the dutiful Mommy and wife role and be hanging about the house even when Bill says he can handle it. But really I just want to run away and join the circus some days - a sense of adventure that is not lacking. I am a nomad by nature. Before the girls were born, every 3 months I had to leave town. The wind changed or something and I had to see something new that I hadn't seen before. Even a trip to a Farmer's Market in a town over worked wonders.

Now, it is the same ol' same ol'. And despite claims of wanting to do "things" on the weekends, the family seems to hit the same rut weekend after weekend. When something is "done" it is of the same - Disney or Sea World. I am convinced there are other family friendly things to do in this town, but others like the familiar. I am truly bored with the familiar.

So I am trying to focus on my training and plan our trip to Seattle. It's my adventure for the year I wager. Mr. Darcy keeps reminding me we're going on a cruise to the Bahamas. I know it will be fun, but it is a formula. You get on the cruise, the food is there, the pool is there, the stop is here with its set possibilities of itineraries. Don't get me wrong, I know it will be fun and I will have a great time and return rested. But some part of me likes the planning of it all, the not knowing if the plan will work out and what will ensue when things don't go according to plan, the researching and mapping, the running around at warp speed with your hair on fire.

Perhaps I'm having a midlife crisis. I don't feel like I am at a crisis, but I do feel like I am wanting more - and isn't that really what a midlife crisis is? Looking at where you are in your life and thinking "this is it?" I was never one of those women with a plan for her life. I know people who said by this age I'll be married, by this age I'll be a successful career woman, by this age I'll have children. Me? Nope. I had plans for a successful career and then discovered that wasn't really what I wanted after all. Maybe I picked the wrong career, but I want to perpetually be learning and somehow making a difference in the lives of others... not exactly what I'm doing right this moment. And of course, I have no idea what "job" or "career" that might be, especially because I want to have the time to spend with my children as well. Other than that, my plan was to not get married and not have children so I could do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. But what exactly that was, I figured it would reveal itself as time went on. The notion that the path would appear and I would take it was one I liked (and still do). Turned out that was a young minded notion as I ended up meeting someone I wanted to spend the rest of my life with at an extremely young age (right before my 18th birthday) and then eventually wanting to have little babies that looked like him.

So the mystery is still unfolding. Perhaps I'm right where I'm supposed to be and this is part of my path... it just seems so unexciting. The same routine repeated on a daily basis. I'm left wanting more, but not exactly sure what that more should be.

I guess that's why I like my triathlon training so much. It's a challenge every day and it changes from day to day. Some days it's hard just to get it done, and some days it's something I've not done before. But all the time it's leading me to the same goal.

Speaking of training, I have been bad. Not with the training, I've done all my training like a good girl. But with my drinking of water. I am back on the wagon again though because my body got even with me last night. It gave me a warning shot Monday in the pool when my foot cramped up, but I thought it was from using the zoomers. As a kid, I always got foot cramps after using flippers so I thought it was that. No, last night in the middle of the night while I was sleeping, my hamstring and the other muscles in the back of my right quad clamped down into the hardest cramp that I have had in a very, very long time. It was at the point that I woke up screaming and couldn't' get it to release for 2 minutes and finally got it stretched to where it would stop. Poor Bill didn't know what to do - and in my sleepy state, I wasn't exactly sure what to do either.

So I started my day with a cup of Gatorade and a glass of water (in addition to the 1st part of my breakfast before the workout). After swimming, I drank my Recoverite and now am wandering out to the garage to get enough bottles of water to line up on my desk for a total of 98 oz. of water. No more messing with failure to properly hydrate.