Life Up in the Air

A friend asked me, “How does it feel to be grounded?” He was referring to the fact that I went from busy business traveler almost 40 percent of the time to no travel at all, in a span of a few months. It was an off-handed comment, but I wasn’t sure how to respond —  and I still don’t know the answer. “How DO I feel about being grounded?”

One reason I struggle is because I felt, and still feel, that the traveling made me interesting. I could talk about exotic locales to visit — like Paris; Geneva; Columbus, Indiana; or Tuscaloosa, Alabama. I could tell stories about running to gate in Atlanta or trying to find a place to check tire pressure on the highway between Georgia and South Carolina (I’m still not sure what state I was in…). I could go on for days about the food in Nice, France or London.

Now that I am land-locked (so to speak). What makes me interesting or exciting or even entertaining at parties? When I tell stories about my former exploits, the listener inside my head tells me I sound like a retired foot soldier reliving my gloried campaigns of war on a bar stool in a dark dive 50 years later. I sound like someone who can only look backward, because the best has come and gone.

I don’t want to be that. As much as I love history, I want to live my life with forward momentum.

So, I have to ask myself, what does it mean to live an interesting life? What then is “interesting.” I think most people would agree, it means “not boring”? And everyone’s definition of that is quite different.

I’ve been out of work for a month as of yesterday. Parts of my days are boring, definitely. Other parts are anxiety-riddled. I’m selling my house. I have to find stuff to do out of the house for an hour at a time every time some stranger — ahem, I mean potential buyer — wants to wander through my home, judging my decorating and housekeeping decisions of the past decade. I have no health insurance, so every time I get into the car and pull into traffic, I take my life and financial security into my own hands.

I have time to experiment in the kitchen, to wander through a Metropark blooming with summer wildflowers, to read a book on blessings and a new romance novel (or four), to watch reruns of 1980s sitcoms ad nauseum. I have time to notice that the universe is trying to send me signs and that some clouds look like Smokey the Bear.

I don’t know if its an exciting life right now. It’s not really boring per se….With my home for sale and looking for a new job and new adventures, trying to make the right decisions that will effect the entire trajectory of my life for the next umpteen years, I feel like my life is definitely up in the air…. not grounded at all.