Are You Reeling In The Years?

As I sit in the “waiting hours” before our football game, I am reflecting on something that has been sticking with me and somewhat of a running joke with one of our football players this week. The conversation began as we were talking about my car shopping excursions. He asked if why I was getting rid of my beloved car and I responded by telling him both money and the end of my lease forced me into it. He said that he was surprised this pre-season to learn what I was driving. When I asked him why, he responded “Because it’s fun.”. I was taken aback and quickly answered with “I’m fun!”.

His comment has been sitting in the forefront of my brain since that day earlier this week for a couple of reasons. The first takes me back 3 years to the car shopping process that brought my beloved car and I together. In discussing what I wanted with my mother, I told her “I need a car that is good for when I visit my clients, something that says business and grown-up, but is still fun and young.”. I found my beloved car and decided that for the hand I’d been dealt recently I deserved a little bit of something good and splurged on my car. Only once in the past 3 years have I regretted that decision. Now, faced with the prospect of giving up my car and moving on I am once again faced with the dilemma of “Do I want grown-up and responsible or fun?”.

The second reason hits a little closer to the vest and takes me back 7 years to living in Greensboro. I was 3 years out of college and settled in to life in North Carolina. I had friends I adored and a man in my life I was enjoying being around. Perhaps they are right when they say hindsight is 20/20, but in my memories I appear larger than life, happy, free-spirited and the very image of “young and fun”. As I look at all the time between there and all the events which have transpired and I know I am closer to that person now than the last 5 years. Slowly but surely I am trudging the path back to finding myself and living, not just existing. Still, there is a little piece of me that says “you are holding back! You should go white-water rafting, get a tattoo, color your hair! Who cares what people think. Live your life and enjoy. You only go around once and you should make it memorable.”! There is another piece of me that realizes at 31 I should be more settled. My genes were given with a clock to slow down, nest and be “adult” that the life I was handed has not supplied. The very nature of my job entails I watch my every step for the “being a role model” and every blasted “you live in a fishbowl” speech I heard in college.

The comment has stuck with me because I would LOVE to be having more fun in my life than I am. I have every avenue open to explore and I’m not exploring it. I am vaguely reminded of the line from When Harry Met Sally when Sally is describing her relationship with Joe. (I’m doing this from memory, so bear with me if it’s not exact) “We always said we could fly to Italy on a moments notice or have sex on the kitchen floor. The thing is, we never did. Not even once.”. I guess the questions I need to ask are “what do I want to be doing” and “how do I go about doing it”?

I am constantly reassured by those that are close to me that I am, indeed, fun. Now it’s just proving it again!