Things to Look Forward to and Things to Be Happy About

The truth is: I've been sitting on the window ledge of a decision that's really nothing exemplary or extraordinary or exciting or really even worth the time I've taken to make a pros and cons list and carefully weigh the unbalanced list of numerous cons on one side against the weight of a single con on the other, but I made the list and I looked it over and I've really allowed myself to nearly commit a serious infraction against myself and the days that remain within 2010. Fortunately, I finally decided to confide in Daniel, and as I did, I realized just how ridiculous my words sounded. Sometimes, all we really need to do is bounce a few phrases off another person who cares and listens to hear just what we need to hear and to see that all the weights and burdens and questions really aren't even worth the time and effort. I'm grateful to have a dude like Daniel in my life, just like I'm happy to have my mom and my sister and a conglomeration of people who constantly remind me to stop taking things so seriously and to stop allowing myself to be a doormat in life. The thing is, I have this desperate need to fit in at times and it carries over into the professional sector at times and I allow myself to get painted into a corner and wrapped up in a box that I subsequently find myself desperate to break through and leave behind. Tonight, I sprang my concerns to a man who returned with his own concerns that he'd been keeping to himself for several weeks and suddenly I saw that all this twisting and turning and feeling that I owe someone one thing or another... it's not always worth it. The best part of being a man in full is knowing when to say when: recognizing your assets and fueling your strengths and recognizing a liability for what it is and agreeing that the best thing you can do is just stop and remove yourself from a bad situation.

This unnatural uncertainty I've been kicking around from one jaw to the other all summer is ready to be simply spit out from my lips and into the pond of life from which we all see and learn and regard. Stick with a good thing in my position with NSU where I can create my own schedule and enjoy guaranteed hours for the next year and take time off when necessary and experience a stress-free, academically charged daily energy (but don't make nearly the money I could--the only con) or kick the NSU work to the curb in an effort to try to balance this rigorous life in academia that I enjoy with extracurriculars and a new relationship and volunteering and a position with a secondary facility to which I really don't feel all that proud or impressed or stress-free to belong. Yeah, written down and looking over one option versus the other really does seem unbelievably silly, but I can't help feeling that it's something I should tough out: get up and walk it off, take it like a man, all that. Crazy, right? Like all the times I've told myself that I'm not a soldier, I'm a human being and here I am taking on undue and unfair psychological stress and pain that's just as bad if not worse than the real daily physical pain I feel at the base of my spine and all the way down my left leg due to this still-not-yet-repaired stenosis thing. Crazy. Maybe I really am a masochist. I certainly have discovered that I am in every other way... why not other than just in pursuits related to any kind of sexually provocative activity? I suppose a true masochist is a masochist from that first cup of coffee all the way to the last cigarette of the day.

So, Daniel and I told each other good night, but just before we parted, he stopped and asked: "So, have you made up your mind yet?" I nodded. Yeah, I think I have. "Good," he told me, "it took long enough." Right, right, right. I headed home, but not before texting one other person for whom I have a tremendous amount of respect: a nurse with a sound mind and just as sound advice. After expressing myself on the matter further than I did the previous time we began discussing the subject, I was told that I was doing the best possible thing in the world if I were to hold onto NSU and let go of the other matter. Permanently. And as soon as possible.

I drove home and thought about having a bite. Instead, I popped in my headphones and posted a few thoughts on Facebook and sent a friend a birthday greeting. And I re-watched the newly released trailer for Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan and almost got turned on watching the thrilling chemistry between Mila Kunis and Natalie Portman and began to speculate at just what the hell the man has in store for the legion of fans he has begun to accumulate... especially with the final ten to fifteen seconds of the trailer and that recently sprouted feather from Natalie Portman's fair shoulder blade and that ominous, deathly symphonic music... the maleficent tones of a Swan Lake reverb... I can't wait for December. That's when I really realized just how much I've missed from this summer break, the holiday in which I planned to only read and write and sleep and catch up on Tivo and spend three weeks being perfectly irresponsible and getting fat on bags of chips and other negative additives to an otherwise healthy diet.

I've read only two novels since June. I've watched only three or four hours from almost one hundred hours saved on my Tivo. I've eaten nachos a couple times, but only in moderation. I've really not slept in. Even the nights I spent alert and oriented and wrapped up in the arms my my sig. fig. to watch the break of dawn and the rise of the sun, I jumped up as early as possible... mostly only into the late morning hours so that I could stay on top of this and that and try to run into work to be sure that I'd not missed anything important while things were quiet. No trips. No overnight hotel stays. No afternoons lounging and burning out by the pool. In fact, the most I've seen of the sun has been the past two days smoking outside the new student orientation and registration for my SNA/SGA involvement. And now, I've only tomorrow and Friday and Saturday and Sunday and this lovely break of mine is over in favor of Addiction Studies and Family Dynamics and Social Problems and Technical Composition and Nursing as a Profession and Pathophysiology and clinical preparation and study groups and highlights and notecards and rewritten notes and all of everything that's coming in September and October and November... all the way up until just before Christmas.

My vow: the next time I accept a position anywhere, I'll be sure to conduct my research and a thorough interview that is just as intense, if not moreso, than the interview to which I may be subjected. I also vow to be true to myself. I refuse to believe the words I was told to accept.. that "it is much easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to ask for permission" because if you're living your life the way you're supposed to, then you rarely have to ask for permission and even less for forgiveness. I vow to be far more careful of allowing work to define my life. I vow to spend a lot more leisure time with the people in my life who really matter: my mom, my sister, my brother, my nieces, my nephews, Jeremy, Shannon, Nick, the SNAers, the SGAers, these co-workers from NSU who keep begging me to come back, and, of course, this unstoppable, undefinable, wordlessly perfect force of nature called Daniel... the one who really lights my F-I-R-E and ALWAYS allows me to be honest, to express myself completely, encourages me to be myself, accepts me no matter what, and pushes me toward being the best possible Miles I can be.

Thanks, Daniel-san. It's awesome to know that he'll be waiting for my call tomorrow, ready to smile and hug me and ask me: "So... how was it... and more importantly, how was your day?" Good question. Especially when the one asking it wants the real, fully explained answer. Who could possibly ask for anything more than that?