10 seconds...

So I marked on my calendar the premiere of the new Netflix series "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt" and started binge watching it when it came out yesterday. It's about a girl who is rescued from an underground bunker after being hidden away there for 15 years thinking the apocalypse was going to happen. It's hilariously funny (and these days I need to laugh out loud), but more importantly, I'm starting to draw a lot of parallels between Kimmy's life and my life.

1. We both have had everything we know taken from us and are having to adjust to a whole new world.
2. We both have a past we're trying to learn from, yet don't want to tell everyone everything for fear of overwhelming them.
3. We both have taken on new lives with pluck and a sense of adventure, only to be knocked down over and over again.

So Kimmy has this thing she says: "You can make it through anything for 10 seconds." Lately, in Costa Rica, I've felt like I can't make it. But now, I'm telling myself "I can make it for the next 10 seconds." Then I tell myself "I can make it through the next ten seconds." I just have to believe it.

I am here for a reason. I think it's to work on myself. Take away everything I know, everything that's familiar, strip me to my core, and I kind of have to. No family. No long-term friends. No boyfriend. No car. I am left with myself, my own self-destructive thoughts and patterns, and I am forced to examine closely why I do the things I do and I behave the way I do.

I have to "radically accept" the fact I am here. I have made a two year commitment, and as much as I want to run away from it and go back home at times (okay, a lot of the time), I need to realize that -in the grand scheme of things-- two years really isn't that long. I think it seems so daunting to me because, in my adult life, I've never stayed anywhere or done anything consistently for two years.

Proof:

2006: Graduated from law school and moved back to Tulsa. Home #1 (Gillette). Job #1 (DHS).
2007: Home #2 (Liberty Tower). New city (OKC). Home #3 (fourplex). Job #2 (ADA)
2008: New City (Claremore). Home #4. Job #3 (Envision).
2009: New city (Austin). Home #5 (sublet). Home #6 (Speedway). Job #4 (CCI). Relationship #1.
2010: Relationship #1 ends. Home #7 (West). Job #5 (DES).
2011: New city (OKC). Home #8 (Edmond). Job #6 (HH).
2012: Job #7 (ESF). Return to Austin. Home #9 (Establishment). Job #8 (BBE).
2013: Relationship #2. Job #9 (MMS). Home #10 (Dessau).
2014: Relationship #2 ends. New country (Costa Rica). Job #10 (Lincoln). Home #11 (Apt. 11). Home #12 (Apt. 4).
2015: NOW

Ten jobs, two relationships, and twelve homes in the past nine years. I NEED some stability and consistency in my life. Clearly, I have a pattern of running when things get difficult. Maybe that's why I am here, with this two year commitment. Because I can't. Because I have to learn to work through things instead of running away.

Ten seconds. 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10...

And repeat...