Seeking Fulfillment in Hawaii

8/12/08
I live in a nice little place in Hawaii that has most of what I wanted when I found it. It has a skylight, I don’t have roommates, it has a nice little garden space and a spot to hang my hammock, and it is close to school. In living there a year though, a few things have become issues to me. There is no parking nearby and the road I live on is very busy. This has made it virtually impossible to invite people over. It is connected though separate from my landlord’s house and only a very thin wall separates my living room and kitchen from the landlord’s grandson, an engineer who goes to bed early and wakes up early. This also makes having people over a problem. While it is close to school, it is far enough from the beach that without a car, I rarely go because the bike ride back is almost all uphill…even when I had a car, I had to park several blocks away and as a result wouldn’t use the car very much. Since my neighbors are so close, I hear them fairly often, brushing their teeth, cooking, etc. So I am pretty sure that they hear me too….this is an issue too… I don’t like it very much.
So while I got most of what I wanted in the place, I found that there were new things that I didn’t want. At this point, I’m not sure if it is good or not. Lately I’ve been looking at rental ads and what I see in Hawaii is that rental rates have actually gone up while the real estate market has gone down…so for the $725 a month that I pay, I definitely couldn’t find a place of my own again, or a place with a garden, but for $500 I could share a room with a gay freshman undergrad…lol. I guess my place is good enough for now. The benefits of my place outweigh the downside. So I have a nice place, but I can’t really entertain or share it with other people and I live in a valley that rains a lot instead of going to the beach…either way I get wet.
As to simplifying my life…at this point, not using the phone very much (I have a prepaid cell that I use basically just for work and rarely carry around with me), I don’t have the internet at home, I don’t have a TV, and I don’t have a car (though I do have a bike and a pretty slow and beat up scooter). I end up watching a couple of movies a week on my laptop (free from the library) and usually on Sunday’s I go watch a movie and smuggle in some taco bell, an iced tea, and some sweets (so usually about $14 for dinner, new movie, and snacks). I’ll invite people sometimes, but most of the time when I invite people it is last minute and most people can’t make it, so I’ve resolved to going by myself, about 80% of the time if I wait for people they flake out, so it’s just better to go by myself. Less stress and less angst and anger when they flake out. Besides, I actually enjoy going to the movies by myself. I watch what I want, immerse myself in the films, and leave according to how urgent my bladder feels…or sometimes…leave and go to five or six movies in the cineplex until I find one I like.
At home, I paint, read, garden, cook, eat, write a little bit and basically get what I need to get done done. I’ve read a dozen pretty thick books in the past month. Increasingly though, I find myself just sitting on the couch or lying in my hammock and doing nothing…I’m bored of it. I’ve been thinking about getting another TV or the internet.
Used to be that when I was feeling bored like that I would go to a bar or pick up a six pack but since I haven’t been drinking that’s not really an option any longer. I don’t miss it, I just miss having something to fill in the void. The modern coffee shops just aren’t that good of third places today…I admit to spending a fair amount of time at the coffee bean, but it’s not too different from sitting alone at home…it’s just sitting alone in public. Which I don’t have a problem with by the way, it’s more interesting to watch people than not.
I was smoking more but I’ve knocked that off and I was doing a lot of yoga and pushups but I knocked that off too. I should probably start doing the yoga and pushups again…
I actually played a five player game of Risk all by myself the other night…lol. I won once and lost four times. Believe it or not though…it was fun and interesting. At least as good as playing a video game by one’s self. Slightly more pathetic though.
Of course I do get out to work. I thought this would be my dream job. It sounded so good. Pick your own schedule based on the tours you are qualified on and then take people hiking and show them the beauty of natural Hawaii. The problem is that the schedule we pick is subject to cancellation based on the tours not getting filled and we don’t know that until two hours before the tour or the night before for morning tours. Since we have had about 1/3 of tours cancelled, that means that this is a no income producing, life sucker of a job that doesn’t allow one to make plans. I was scheduled for two tours yesterday and two today. One of them went out. Maybe I need to increase that 1/3 number. The tour that did go out was a divorced husband and wife and their three kids. He and one son live here and the wife and two other sons are in Texas still. They were on a redneck dysfunctional family vacation and didn’t care about anything they saw. In fact they complained volubly that they saw no waterfalls on a tour that does not include waterfalls. Also along were a fundamentalist christian missionary couple just returned from Rwanda who were not interested in hearing about evolution or geology since the “theories are not proven” and don’t mesh with their belief in a 58,000 year old earth. And then there was the nice Indian family of 6 from Boston who were interested in everything but got to come on tour with the other 7 party poopers. Full tour and did the best I could, but you might be willing to guess that the tips were less than stellar. lol. What a disaster!
So this is a long rather introspective post. I’m not unhappy. My life is pretty good. I’m satisfied with my choices, rather satisfied enough, but I can honestly say that my home, work, geography, and social life are not good enough for me to rest on my laurels. I’ll stick around here long enough to get my degree in December and then…well…then something else.
It’s funny to hear my classmates talk about what they will do with the graduation money they will get. At times I’ve forgotten that it isn’t something everyone gets. Just like not everyone gets their parents to pay for their education. Especially when one is in their mid-thirties. When I graduate I will have accumulated about $35,000 in debt to get the degree and honestly, I can’t expect to get any graduation money gifted to me. None the less, I will be leaving this land of $7 per gallon milk and $35 a gallon honey and heading to somewhere else…. I’ll get the money. Maybe I will go find Bernest Ernstein…..