alexis in the city

non-retirement

I’ve known too many sad retired people, and a recent study shows that moms who work (outside the home) are happier than those who don’t - but I have a different reason for not wanting to retire: I really love to work. I discovered this as I wandered the country listlessly over Christmas break.

Ok, not really - we had a great time seeing family and friends in DC, Estes Park and Breckenridge. But there was an undertone of un-productivity winding throughout the week I took “off.”

I know you can successfully work from the road - I do it quite often when I travel and spent three months traveling Asia while working. And I also know that it’s crucial to take some downtime and relax. I was just thrilled at the end of that relaxation time to be able to start working again. By Monday afternoon both Ryan and I had said something along the lines of - “I really missed this!”

Sure, part of this simply has to do with craving routine, but it also has to do with the energy and fulfillment that comes with working toward something enjoyable and productive. I hope that one day (in the semi-near future?!) my work won’t have to be so closely tied to earned income and my career pursuits can exist independently of the necessity for a salary. So in a sense, yes, I want to retire.

But I know that I could never - as my sister says - “faff about.” I need a project; a goal; a full schedule. Because I am the girl who, when living in Italy for a year and unable to work, put in a nearly full-time schedule as a volunteer at the newspaper and radio station. I’ve had paying jobs where people haven’t shown up as much ;).

Doggyhood and Parenthood

Having a series of badly-behaved doggy children has prepared me for potential parenthood in a way I didn’t realize until recently. Not in the typical “learn-to-love-something-and-keep-it-alive” way that most people expect from dog caregiving (though yes, yes, it’s done that too). But rather because I.don’t.give.a.shit.

Yes, I hear the snide comments when my dog won’t stop baying; I see the judging looks when I tell people Bianca isn’t very friendly; I watch people’s confusion when I feed her from a jar of baby food. And I let it roll right over me because I’ve got a hot mess of a canine creature to attend to, and I could care less if you think I’m a bad doggy parent.

Because here’s the thing - I’m not a lax doggy parent and I’m doing my absolute best and then some, to make my dog owning experience happy and peaceable for all involved. I know my dogs have had issues - I’ve worked with trainers, sent them to camps, slowly socialized them, tried - and continue to try - all the tricks in the book. With every dog I’ve had, I’ve wanted them to be happy, well-adjusted animals and I’ve done everything in my power and worked my hardest with them to attempt to make that a reality. Sometimes things just don’t quite work out perfectly.

But I’ll continue to do it, no matter what snorts of derision I get from old men in elevators. And I’m sure when the time comes, people will judge me for my parenting skills, or complete lack thereof - but I won’t notice. I’ve been training to ignore their judgment my entire adult, dog-owning life.

Won’t you save me San Francisco

Twenty percent of the people in San Francisco leave every year. Statistically that means the entire city turns over every five years. I read a quote once that in order to have staying power here, you’ve got to accept that while SF is awesome, she’s also cold and hard; that these young, bright-eyed kids come to the city for various reasons - as recent grads, to be near Silicon Valley, to experience a city without committing to a place like New York - but they get easily disillusioned when the raw grit emerges after the shine wears off.

I came to the city as one of those wide eyed recent grads, but I’ve managed to stay here for five years - the longest I’ve lived anywhere in my life ever - and that to me is staying power. Natives get defensive when you start talking like a local after making it past the typical breaking point, and I understand that. But San Francisco will always be the place I broke some of my nomadic tendencies, and that is a personal milestone.

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Could my ten-year-old self have been right?

I remember the exact moment. I was about ten. I was riding bikes with my mom down the palm tree-lined street in our unnecessarily ritzy neighborhood in Florida. I say “unnecessary” because even a ten-year-old knows all Florida is is sand and heat and humidity and the eternal quest for air conditioning or water. But I surprisingly don’t remember those things. All I remember about this moment is telling my mom what I wanted to do with my life:

I wanted to be a TV newscaster.

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outsourcing the “nesting” instinct

the holidays have gotten me thinking about it: i am not a nester. my apartment itself isn’t really “decorated” at any time of year. i don’t have an eye for design at all except to choose lots of green accents, and keep things as minimalist as possible when living in 400 square feet ~ nothing on top of shelves, no trinkets or decorations or candles. (i do collect art from the countries i travel, but some of it isn’t even up, and the pieces that are, are haphazardly placed.) perhaps because of this, i’ve never decorated for the holidays - any of them, really.  i go “home” every christmas where my mom exquisitely displays all my childhood nostalgia - how could i ever venture to compete with that? i don’t have my own family and the amount of time and effort to arrange something for two people who really don’t care either way, seems pointless. this combined with my aforementioned lack of design skills and space, and desire for minimalism, is the perfect storm for some really half-assed decor, even if i tried.

so i never have. not so much as a christmas tree. the interesting thing is, i LOVE the holidays. i love family tradition: decorating the tree, making sugar cookies, eating swedish meatballs with lingonberries on christmas eve and swedish sausage on christmas morning. i love looking at all the crazy christmas crafts we did as kids, and reading all our favorite books like “the little drummer boy” and “the grinch” and watching “little women” (which has somehow become a holiday tradition). i love santa lucia and candlelight services and singing carols around the piano. but these are all things i do with my family, and nothing i would try to replicate on my own, which is probably why i don’t see the point of decorating. like all my other traditions, i rely on my parents for that.

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