Subdued

I won't apologize for how little or much I post here, just so you know. It's been a long time since I blogged regularly, so I'm going to let entries come to me whenever and however that may happen. I have a few on deck, but I'll wait a bit on those. But I do have one today...

I mentioned it briefly when I was greeting 2011, but this year I am hard at work on many things. It's not unlike the several years that have come before this. I always feel like I'm building toward something, setting benchmarks and taking steps toward an ultimate goal. Last year was a tremendous year for reaching ultimate goals. I graduated from grad school. I moved to Washington D.C. I landed an excellent job I can see myself working at for the next several years. But I'm not through yet. There's more ground to gain and I'm hard at work.

Basically, since I moved to California, I feel like I've made several personal sacrifices. I've left behind friends. Invested in my career instead of my social life. I dragged myself through these stressful, difficult, and lonely situations for years. It's always difficult for me to make new friends in a new place. Since I left college over five years ago, I've "started over" at least three times. That's an incredible burden for someone like me.

I have a lot to show for these hard times, and I would certainly go through it all again. But that brings me back to my goals for this year. Basically, I want to make investments in myself and my lifestyle. I want to meet new people. I want to exercise more and make major progress toward my long term running goals. I want to, basically, have fun! So far, this has all gotten off to an interesting, somewhat subdued beginning.

On the "have more fun" front, I'm doing alright. I'm trying to get together with friends fairly regularly. We try to do happy hours once every two weeks, and between that there's taco night at the National Press Club (more on that later). I've more or less punted on my goal to meet more people until this spring and summer. It's hard for me to warm up to people during a winter like this.

But the other investments I'm making are a bit off putting. I run just about every day and get to the gym before work every day, just plugging away at my fitness goals. I've felt some great progress, but I know there's so further to go. I'm kind of addicted to it, actually, but I feel like it puts people off. How often can you really talk about how you had a great run during your lunch time at work or that you met your personal best on the bench press?

It makes me feel a bit disconnected as I somewhat-selfishly focus on myself, but I hope it's understood this has all been a long time coming. I feel like I've let all this slide for so long, it's in the interest of my own personal happiness that I pursue these goals and achieve them. I'm actually trying to reach out to some other friends who are seeking their own goals like mine so we can offer some mutual encouragement.

So yeah, you might see me running a lot from now until May, but it's all in the interest of doing some really fun stuff come summer time. I can't wait to get to the beach and get a great tan. I also can't wait to increase my speed and set a new personal best at my next marathon later this year. All in due time, I suppose.