Another Round of out West

My leave of absence has come.  For the second year in a row, I have given up my life in MN and travelled to SD to spend a couple months.  This year is a bit different as it has been just over a year since my mom passed away so my expectations of how this is going to be has definitely changed.  What a crazy lead-up to leaving my home.

We sold our house (actually to a friend of mine) and the closing date was far enough into winter that it made sense for me to simply leave right after.  And I took that to be RIGHT after as I was on the road less than an hour after the last paper was signed.  I know I have a bit of a difficulty understanding completely the enormity of situations as I am currently in them and this was no different.  It probably didn't hit me for a couple days that I am technically homeless.  And I have no idea where I am going to live.

Fortunately, really life-savingly, I have a tremendous friend that allowed me to consume a building on her family's farm to store all my shit.  I have WAY too much shit.  Collecting crap over 20 years has amounted to an entire building's worth of stuff.  Mostly bicycle related.  My Ebay account is going to go insane when I get back.  Actually, it will start right after the first of the year.  I intend on selling most of the things I don't use all the time.  There will be a few items that are not used constantly (my touring bike and panniers, just to name a couple) but otherwise, as I bring loads back into my living arrangement, I will assess how necessary they are and if I can't make a really good argument for it, on the auction block it goes.

Gear dandruff

So coming back to ranching life, I have done a fair amount of cleaning, my stepfather is not known for his organization and cleanliness.  I have also tried to make his place ready for winter.  Last year, we didn't really have winter at all.  This year appears to be making up for that.  Prepping for the first significant weather of the season, one of the projects was to fix the garage opener which he thought was simply unlocked from the track.  It turns out that the "Professional Series" opener uses plastic gears.  Plastic!!  This opener has been having issues for probably 5 years and I decided to take matters into my own hands.  Taking the cover off I discover all the remnants of what used to be the gear mechanism.  Fortunately they are not too expensive so a new gear mechanism is on its way.  It won't be here for the weekend, but at least I will be able to have it operational before much more inclement weather happens.

A difference this year is that it seems like I don't have much time at all.  Last year seemed like the winter was a very long time.  This year, I am more organized and have a number of projects I wish to accomplish.  This is changing how I think about my time out here.  It already seems like it is too short even though in several ways, I cannot have it be over soon enough.

The Changes, They Keep on Changing

So many things have happened over the course of 1 year.  It's almost hard to keep up.  And I guess if I really think about it, it isn't the number of changes, but the magnitude of those changes.

My last post was about my mom dying.  I'm not sure I have really processed this yet.  I have a feeling this Christmas is going to hit pretty hard.  Last year I didn't really do much for Christmas at all.  I also think it is going to take some time before I can really dive into Christmas again.  I vacillate between not wanting to do anything for the holiday anymore and wanting to honor her in some way by celebrating substantially.  I figure over the course of a few years, this will work it's way out.

I have also switched jobs.  The shop I was at closed, rather unexpectedly last year.  This was the first time I had to deal with being unemployed on someone else's terms.  Actually, this is only the second time I have been unemployed since I started working.  The first being when I moved to the twin cities.  The timing seemed to be perfect because of my mom so I decided to take a bit of a sabbatical over the winter.  I spent a couple months on my parent's ranch, helping out my step-father as he transitioned to being alone and aiding in some of the chores that I didn't think would get done anytime soon and a lot of the day-to-day chores too.

Two very good friends of mine and I opened a new bike shop in Minneapolis.  It has been a very hard year gearing up inventory and building displays and creating work space and learning new customers and a new way of doing business.  We started with all kinds of new ways of doing things, so the learning has been nonstop.  Non of us has ever been a part of a brand new store, but we all have bike shop experience.  At times, I don't know if that has hurt or helped.  Most likely a fair amount of both.  But it has been very rewarding and it has always felt extremely liberating to not be pigeon-holed into an exact way of doing things.  We have evolved as we understand our business and are understanding more and more how each other works best and how to best move the business forward.

Now that the season is beginning to wind down, I am again thinking of taking a leave of absence.  I have to balance not wanting to be a drain on the money side of things vs. making us more ready for next season.  There are still a voluminous amount of details to take care of before we are ready to accept the hordes of customers that happen every spring in the cities.  Constantly a work in progress.  

To top it off, I am also going through a divorce.  After 16 years, my wife and I are no longer in a husband/wife relationship.  We are at the point where we want very different things and cannot figure out a way to be a couple.  So for the last month we have been fixing our house and recently put it up for sale.  It is one of the weirdest things to do all this work that we talked about doing just to give it to someone else.  We considered having one of us buy out the other but we are hoping it is worth more than either of us can afford.

Which is also why I feel a leave of absence is a good idea.  If I no longer have a place to live (fingers crossed), it is a fantastic time to regroup.  Clear my head of how my life has been, and move on to a new way.  Change my perspective of how life is, to how I want it to be.  I only get one chance at this, I need to make it good.