Saturday I was supposed to leave on a pretty awesome business trip.
Austin-Dallas-London-Copenhagen-Amsterdam-London-Hamburg-Munich-Chicago-Austin
This as I poured my third cup of coffee and sat down at my desk, I opened my inbox. Everything was a blur except the line, ‘I have decided to postpone the events.’
Damn.
On the bright side, I’ll get avoid the sub-Arctic winter that part of the globe is enduring right now, but as the walls closed in around me, the reality that I’m grounded in Austin sank in.
I’ve tried several times to capture my experience here, but each time my mind goes blank.
I like to think that when the time is right, my experiences here will flow through me as a mystical muse whispers the right words into my ear and onto the computer. My fingers flying as the story I was meant to tell is typed out onto the screen.
Once April gets here, my travels will start again. I have adventure and travel to seek out (and corporate events to plan and execute), but in the meantime, I’m here.
Over the next couple of months a lot will happen. My company will have its big conference event of the year, the annual SXSW interactive, film, and music festivals will take place, and maybe I’ll even find the time to get my oil changed and wash my car. Over the next couple of months I’ll try to look at this place through a different set of eyes.
At some point, I will leave this town and when I do- the purpose, the reason, the meaning as to why I’ve spent the past seven and a half years in the Texas capital will reveal itself. Even though I was raised in the suburbs outside of Houston, I grew up in Austin.
I don’t know why I have so much inner conflict with this place. But hopefully, one day soon, it will all pay off.
I’m grounded here and like a child in time out, I’m going to think about what I’ve done. What have I learned from the people, the places, the experiences.
To quote an often overlooked movie that hits close to home in my book, “Every good writer has a conflicted relationship with the place that he grew up. Joyce, Faulkner, Tolstoy… What I took from you story is this- that even in a world where people can be superficial and stupid and selfish, there’s still hope.”
Things are so close to clicking, I can hear it.
