But I Came Out Lookin' Just the Same

"couln't quote you no Dickens, Shelly, or Keats

'cause it's all been said before

make the best out of the bad, just laugh it off

you didn't have to come here anyway.

So remember, every picture tells a story, don't it."

This weekend I'm off for what should be a wonderful and in my opinion much earned vacation.  My wife's travels provide her many perks such as free airline miles, car rentals, and hotel nights.  She travels a lot and so those perks can accrue to a pretty nice level. Mix that with the little bit I can throw in and our dual incomes can afford some nice trips.  While the perks stay fairly consistent year to year they were at this level four years ago when we decided to go to the island we will fly to this weekend.  Four years ago I had given up on things, I was just tagging along.  I know you are thinking, "weren't you guys going to some romantic island?" We were but our girls were along as well so while in a Caribbean paradise it was all family time. Two nights before we left I watched CNN in bed and listened to an interview about a strange website. The next day I googled that website and learned more about it and signed on.  That impulse started a lifestyle.  That lifestyle changed me immeasurably.

Signing onto that website seemed significant in and of itself.  The outcomes and adventures of the relationships developed from that association have been rich and in retrospect very rewarding.  But as I sit here typing I feel that website was just a gateway, the first step towards change.  The real change was the blog.  Soon after starting this adventurous journey on that odd website I realized I wanted to tell my story just like those other bloggers I had now found.  The telling of the story enriched the experience.  Telling made me better at the website game.  Becoming better at the website game made for better stories.  Better stories made for better blogging and so on and so on.

And so I went forward as months went on to years.  The people I met through the website and even moreso through the blog began to shape me.  I changed or rather began to evolve.  I like to think it gave me some of that swagger back that I'd lost a few years before.  Or maybe it just gave me a reason to go to the gym. Funny thing, while I was at that gym I formed some relationships that really helped move my career forward in a big way.  A way that is just now coming to fruition. But we are talking about work now and that was supposed to be in my past that was of no fun.  

But my dad did say "son you better see the world..."  And that I did or at least seemed to do as I cruised that world wide web and blogosphere.

Unfortunately he also said "don't lose your head to a women that'll spend your bread.."  That I don't think I learned.

Each adventure was a new path but then one day you realize you've searched along so many paths they all seem to be the same and ultimately have the same terminus.  And of course then you realize that you are just telling the same story over and over again.

Now I've got my new job which really seems like a return to the old me.  And we are heading back to that Caribbean island we visited four years ago.

Yeah, I started to call this post "the More Things Change the More They Stay the Same."  I wanted something evocative.  But who wants to use lyrics from a hair metal band called Cinderella to be evocative.

Not I!  So as I think about this weekend I find myself saying...

"Every picture tells a story, don't it, don't it, every picture tells a story baby...."

Yes, Rod tells a pretty good story!