Start, Stop, Start, Stop, Start

My blog has lain dormant for over 5 years. Prior to that it stayed quiet for two years. So perhaps a smidge of an update is in order. Here goes.

I left teaching in June 2014, and I left Texas over 2 years later in  August 2016, after living there for over 17 years. In the interim I've been  and still am an Uber driver, (how 21st Century), and am presently attending massage therapy school, fulfilling a destiny of a healer, foretold by a tarot card reader in Quincy Massachusetts 20 years ago. You laugh, (or snicker, or eye roll), but she told me quite a few things that have come to fruition. She was on point. More later.

I live in Arlington Virginia. I occupy a well furnished basement of the rather large house of close friends of mine. I know what you're thinking, and I to initially had trepidation about this arrangement in the past, in fact I resisted their generous offer for nearly two years. I had been living by myself for a long time, use to my own ways and habits, now I would be sharing living space with others. How would it work out? How  might it impact our friendship? Furthermore what did it say about me, and my own situation, being in my late 40's, unmarried, and living with friends? It was six months after leaving teaching that my friend Jen, along with her husband Ryan asked me to consider moving there. In my head, with the latter two questions I stubbornly refused. But the universe is self correcting, and it wants what it wants, and it to has ways.

I had taken a job with a firearms retailer in the Spring of 2015, while doing Uber. The retailer, which will not be named, is an entity out of California. I was to be one of their concealed handgun instructors, as well as sell firearms and related accessories. I thought it might be a good fit considering my background. I was working with people whom I worked with at DFW Gun Range a decade earlier. The band was back together. There were guys from Texas that I never worked with, but were quite cool. There were staff from California, and a couple of them were cool. Unfortunately that's where the fairy tale ends, because the majority of Californians were in management, and were VERY uncool, douchebags really. Personality conflicts arose within months. It got to a point where I dreaded going to work. Of course during this time Jen and Ryan made their offers. I continued to refuse.

During this time I lost contact with a close friend of mine. She lived 45 minutes from me, and as far as friendship, we had been close. I tried repeatedly to call, and text, but rarely did I hear back from her, to the point where over a year had passed, and nothing. The last time we spoke and saw each other was two weeks before my leaving Texas. I remember one of her sons asked if they would ever see me again. The question crushed me. However since that visit, nothing, though to her "credit" I've made no effort to contact. It wasn't like we had an argument of any kind, from my end we faded from very close friends, to acquaintances. It makes me sad. Why do I mention this? Because there was a time in the late 90's that I loved her and thought we could make a life together. So I left Massachusetts in June of 1999 to be closer. Long story short, it didn't come close to happening. However as predicted by the aforementioned tarot card reader, this woman would and did break my heart.

So a year into the dreaded gun store job, Jen ad Ryan became more generously persistent about moving to Virginia. I remember that the last Sunday I worked at the store, my former 4th grade team leader from school came in to the store with her husband close to closing time. I had not seen her in the nearly two years I'd left the school. This was a premonition. I had two days off, and came in on Wednesday, sold over $3,000 worth of firearms in and hour, called into the back office, and fired by the powers that be. I was relieved.

I would proceed to visit Jen and Ryan twice in the next month, and they were more persistent. I came back to Dallas, and upon visiting the top of Reunion Tower for the first time in 17 years, I realized it was time to go. The person whom I really cared about, and uprooted my life for, no longer returned phone calls and texts. My teaching job, for which I'd also moved to Texas for was also nonexistant, and I'd just been fired from the last job I hated. The Universe has its ways.

I spoke with Jen, and finally said yes. I packed up my life, and in August 2017, I said good bye to Texas, and hello to Virginia. I still drive for Uber, and as stated I attend massage therapy school. I share a house with Jen and her husband, their cat, and their 3 year old and 16 month old daughters, both of whom have me wrapped around their little fingers, and the oldest is prone to reminding me that I'm getting older, and will occasionally refer to me a "Dave Sweety." The living arrangement has been a positive one, (for me at least). However, after living by myself for a long time, there is something wonderful about walking in, and upon seeing this three year old,  hearing her exclaim loudly, "our Dave is home!"