FOMO

I became very familiar with the term FOMO, the acronym for Fear Of Missing Out, last year at work. My client at the time had to adhere by incredibly strict FDA regulations, but they also wanted the mobile marketing tour we were developing, one that traveled to music festivals across the country, to allow the consumers inside to enjoy the brand experience without cutting them off from the festival experience happening outside. The resulting idea pitched was from that moment on known as the FOMO wall; a two way glass façade that would allow people inside to see out, but keep anyone outside from seeing in. The client didn’t want to risk the possibility of it failing, exposing us to an FDA nightmare, so the idea was killed, but it’s had me thinking since then; wouldn’t it be awesome if you could always have the best of both worlds?

So much of our current culture overall seems to be based on FOMO. We want to buy everything, do everything, see everything, and we run ourselves ragged to make sure we don’t miss out. But in doing that, do we even really get time to enjoy any of it? I find myself more often than not wishing that I could be in more than one place at a time. I love to stay in and relax at night, but when I do, I think about all the things I could be doing instead, and the subsequent anxiety makes me crabby as hell. (Just ask M.) I used to think of myself as having two places that I call home, but now there’s three; my home in Green Bay, my home in Milwaukee, and my home in Orlando.  There isn’t a day that goes by that I find myself longing to be back in Orlando and working at Walt Disney World. I miss it very tangibly; every time I watch a Disney movie, or see a Facebook post from one of my friends who still works there, or hear about someone I know planning a trip, my chest gets tight and I find myself more than a little homesick. At that point I always stop and think to myself, “well, if that’s how you feel, why don’t you get a job there and move?” And after the fleeting moment of elation that thought inspires, another one pops up just as quickly; I won't. I won’t – not I can’t, but I won’t - because I’ve met the love of my life, and I make a conscious choice, my own choice, every day, to choose love, and a family, over a job. There is happiness, for me, in both choices, but guys like my boyfriend and his son only come along once in a lifetime. I am happy and content with the choice I continue to make…but that doesn’t mean I don’t wish I could find a way to live in both places at once. I miss being a part of the Disney culture, but I'm happy with the life I've created here, too. 

Since my move to Green Bay, Milwaukee has been added to the list of “places I wish I could live simultaneously”. This one is a bit easier since it’s only 2 hours away from me, and only 1 hour from my office, but all of us adults know how hard adulting can be, and time is one of those things that just seems to slip through our fingers. Trips to Milwaukee tend to be rushed and harried, trying to see everyone I want to see and do everything I want to do, and have begun to feel more like “obligation trips” than trips I enjoy. The funny thing is, I’m the one imposing all those obligations. I know that my friends and family are happy for whatever time I can give them. Just last night I saw that my sister went to see "Wicked" with some friends of hers and I had a FOMO flareup from hell that resulted in the following inner dialogue:

"Dude, if I had been in town, I could have gone with them. But I had a cooking class date night scheduled. But I wouldn't have scheduled it if I knew about Wicked! But they didn't even ask me to go. Yeah, because I'm 2 hours away and it's a weeknight and they knew I couldn't. But I could have! But no, the money, and the time, and I'd have been rushing. But it's Wicked, and it's Broadway, I mean it totally would have been worth it! But.. and... but..." And on it went. 

And don't even get me started on RSVP's. Friends, let me tell you know - event invitations paralyze me, because when there is more than one option, I am terrified of picking the wrong one. Which person will be less pissed at me if I don't come? Which one is more important? Which one do I WANT to attend? I also worry that if I pick one, something insanely awesome will automatically happen at the other, like Tyler shows up and tells everyone he's actually a unicorn and shows everyone his magical rainbow horn, and I'll have missed it, and I can't live with that kind of guilt.

For the record, the cooking class date night I mentioned above was amazing, and involved eating all sorts of delicious new-to-us Indian food as well as some fantastic QT with the man I love. The bottom line, though, and the reason for this blog post, is to remind myself that I CAN'T BE IN MORE THAN ONE PLACE AT ONCE. That will never change (I mean, I guess it could at some point, when all that science stuff makes time traveling possible, but definitely not in our lifetimes) - so why do I keep trying? Why do I keep worrying about it, and stretching myself beyond thin to do it all, and then neglecting to even take a moment to enjoy the present? This is an especially pertinent topic with the holiday coming up. So, I am challenging myself, and you, to try to spend 5 minutes a day living in the moment. 5 minutes people! We can do this! And if you're up for it, make it 10. Or 15. Or an hour. Or hell, if you're some kind of freakazoid genius, A WHOLE DAY. 

Challenge. Accepted. 

Back in the Saddle

Hello old friends. It's me, your favorite blogger*. It's been a while, and I hope this blog finds you well. It's been an interesting year for me. Let's recap, timeline style:

• August 2014: I meet my boyfriend, whom we shall call Jay to protect his anonymity. Where did we meet? On Tinder. Yes, you heard me right. I swiped right, and he swiped right, and the rest, as they say, is history. 

• September 2014: I stand up in a wedding for some good friends of mine. My ex-work husband who was also at the wedding gets wasted and tells a nice old couple, "See this girl right here? She's the love of my life. I let her put it in my butt." He doesn't remember this at all. 

• October/November/December 2014: Jay lives two hours away, in Green Bay so during this time there are a lot of road trips, FaceTime calls, and gross text messages talking about how much we miss and love each other. Gross.

• January 2015: I decide it's time for a new job. Jay and I decide that we've had it with the whole "two hours away from each other" thing. I wonder if there's a way to remedy both at the same time.

• February 2015: I interview for a super fun company that makes toilets, that is also located somewhere between Milwaukee and Green Bay. 

• March/April/May 2015: Still interviewing for said toilet job. Yes, seriously. Three months, 2 phone interviews, a full-day interview with 7 different people, some testing (including algebra and spatial testing, I guess to make sure I'm not a serial killer?) and a meeting with a psychologist and...

• June 2015: I got the toilet job! Only it's not actually a toilet job. I work with furniture and tile stuff. I still think toilets would have been cooler.

• July 2015: I start my new non-toilet job, and move out of my apartment and in with my sister for a month. I get stuck in traffic both ways on the commute. I hate everyone.

• August 1, 2015: I turn 32, pack up the U-Haul, and move 2 hours from home, and 10 minutes from Jay. A few weeks later, my BFF comes up to visit and helps me weed and dispose of a dead squirrel. Cuz that's what BFF's do.

• September 2015: I don't know what the hell I did last month. All of a sudden it was September 30th and I was like, what the hell am I doing with my life now? Apparently, moving to a smaller city has made me soft.

So that brings us to today. October 2nd, 2015. New job, new house, new city, all within less than a year. And the experiences I've had at my new job and in my new city thus far have already led me to a few new realizations:

1. I have a slot machine problem.
Maybe it's because there's not much else to do in Green Bay when there's not a football game on, but I have spent more time and money than I'd like to admit at the local casino. I won $100 in one spin last time, and convinced myself I could double it. Spoiler alert: I couldn't. On the plus side, this casino has the best damn cheese fries I've ever had in my life.

2. All movie theaters are not created equal.
In Milwaukee, I watched movies in style; we'd buy reserved tickets online days beforehand, then walk into the Ultra-Screen theater seconds before the preview, and an usher would escort us to our extra-large, Presidential-style semi-reclining loungers, where I could lounge comfortably in any manner I pleased. In Green Bay, one of the theaters doesn't even have stadium seating yet. All the seats are just... on the floor, like they expect us to just use our go-go-Gadget necks to extend so we can see over the people in front of us. I had also been used to needing to purchase tickets in advance for the blockbusters, since the theater I went to in Milwaukee always sold out opening night. Since my new theater doesn't have reserved seating, I got there an hour early on the opening night of the new Avengers movie.

Friday night, 7 pm - and Jay and I were 2 of the 5 people who showed up to watch it.

On the plus side, I don't have to worry about paying extra for reserved seating. On the downside, I miss not having a broken, over-extending seat bottom and an armrest digging into my side while I'm enjoying the newest release.

Green Bay. You need to get your movie theater shit together.

3. People in Green Bay are very friendly.
However, their friendliness comes at a cost, and that cost is time. I truly believe that no one in the city has anywhere to be at any certain time, nor has anyone ever owned a watch. In fact, when the people of Green Bay make appointments, I'm fairly certain that the scheduler tells them to "just show up sometime between when the sun rises and the wind is coming from the East, or when you finish your coffee, but make sure that you drive slowly with the windows down and enjoy every single moment on your way in." It would infuriate me if it wasn't actually kind of refreshing.

4. Long distance relationships are WAY different than "in the same city" ones...
...in the very best way. I am so glad I moved. I hated missing Jay all the time. The biggest adjustment is trying to be okay with having to shave my legs ALL THE TIME now. It's been fun to watch and adjust to the new dynamic of our relationship now that we have so much more time together. I love it. He makes me very, very happy.

5. Kids. Can. Be. Exhausting.
It's also been strange to wrap my head around the fact that I'm contemplating adding "stepmother" to my life resume. I mean, I still eat cheese straight off the block and put it back in the fridge with bite marks on it, but I'm supposed to help a kid navigate the waters from childhood into adulthood? There are still weekends where I don't change out of my pajamas, but I'm supposed to make sure a child eats healthy and doesn't grow up to be an asshole? Im lucky, because he's a very kind, helpful, funny and overall good kid, with SO MUCH ENERGY. I'm not used to it yet, and just thinking about it makes me want to take a nap.

6. Baby Mama Drama: It's all the same.
I've spent a lot of time wishing I could erase his ex from the face of the earth, and then feeling bad because she's his son's mother. I like to think she's a special breed of selfish, but the truth is, she's no different than the rest of us. It's hard for all parties involved to navigate the tangled mess of a divorce and new relationships with a child's well-being and happiness at stake. It's even harder as the girlfriend of the parent, when the fights had and the decisions made about the child will always affect you, but you can't always be a part of them. I feel both confident in saying and surprised by the fact that I'm able to be more selfless than I thought I ever could be when it comes to this, but I'm still not 100% comfortable with that fact yet. Despite the strength of our relationship, a tiny part of me struggles to know in my core that Jay is advocating in my, and our, best interest during those fights and discussions too, since I know his son will always come first. And that's hard sometimes, but I imagine it's even harder for Jay to carefully make choices that keep all three of us happy and functional.

Last but not least, and on a much lighter note,

7. Packer Football is some serious shit.
I mean I already knew that, since I was born bleeding green and gold - but the way the city comes alive on game days is pretty amazing. I was running errands the morning of our Sunday game a few weeks ago, about 8-9 hours prior to kickoff, and the stadium lot was already bustling with people in elaborate green and gold outfits, with way too much booze for 10am on a Sunday morning already under their belts. Packer Fans are intensely dedicated fans, and it's pretty cool to be a part of that.

Until next time, my friends. Enjoy the fall weather this weekend, along with some football/chili/apple picking/pumpkin spice everything.

*I realize it's more than likely that I'm actually no one's favorite Blogger, but sometimes it's fun to pretend.