Resume

My friend is in Peru right now, on a 5 day trek to summit Machu Picchu. I was invited to go along earlier this year and declined. This afternoon reading a book on Pakistan's nuclear program over brunch at the bar of a neighborhood cafe, I ran into a guy I met almost 2 years ago there. He looked really, really good. Really good. Movie star good. Wish I had taken a picture good. We chatted briefly while he ordered his drinks for outside and I returned to my book wishing I was someone else.

Last time I bumped into him, we exchanged contact information and became Facebook friends. He would be a filmmaker if he could be but to pay the bills, he runs a film production company primarily used by lawyers to create reenactments in personal injury lawsuits. He travels, is very outdoorsy, takes amazing pictures, AND he's ridiculously good looking. When I meet someone like him, I want to report that I've just returned from a grueling but amazing trek up the mountains of Peru. I want to be that interesting person that interesting people like him want to know.

I walk away from encounters like that wondering what I lack, what experiences I can seek that would make me that girl. I want to say 'hey there! I know I'm cerebral but I can be fun and interesting!' Which is a near perfect cyclical deadlock of self-loathing, and being down on myself for not liking who I am. Even David Blaine would have a hard time breaking out of that one. I want to see Machu Picchu some day but close to 2/3 of my pleasure in seeing it will be to say I've done it and seem like the kind of person who does things like that. I wrote a very honest list when I left the military about what I liked about my job. One of the things I liked, and continue to like in the job I do now is what is conveyed in the association of a title or membership in a certain group. But even within those groups, I am still an anomaly, a dark horse of sorts and that is largely okay with me. I don't want to be like everyone else. I want to show there's a different way of getting things done and I like quietly winning people over to camp Ava. But I still want to belong somewhere. What works for me professionally does not work at all for me socially. Not even a little bit. Unless people are forced by circumstance to get to know me, it usually doesn't happen. *Sigh*

My Facebook status today is "Relentlessly pursuing discontent."