The Dream Crusher

For those who know the comfort and profitability of an office job, who fantasize about how following your unconventional dreams would be a world replete with gumdrops, unicorns and self-satisfaction, this is the post that will kill those dreams. Sorry.

You might have noticed (if you still check this page) a significant period of radio silence from me since I left New York, got married, and moved back long-term to the borderlands of desert and brush. That's because I seriously have nothing to tell you.

Del Rio was an adventure when I first came here in 2010 after a year of cheesemaking and on the tail-end of an epic road trip. That was before I left for a year of cheesemongering in New York. On my return, the Rio Grande desert has lost a substantial amount of luster. I won't pretend like the sentiment contained in the preceding two sentences is anything but completely pretentious and fully cliched: Itinerant Midwestern girl moves to the big city with bright lights and everything else seems a little more dull and far less cosmopolitan on her return. Yeah I sound like a jackass. I know.

I guess you could call it the
 best most awful thing 

But it's the truth. After all, isn't ambition as much pretension as it is courage? Doesn't it contain an equal part of narcissism as it does creativity? If you wanted something really bad and find yourself in a dead end, doesn't all that selfishness sour into a fermented pot of self-pity and existential questioning? I had a life in New York. I had friends, new and old. I had a job with money for rent and fun. I had activities and exploration at my fingertips. I had a gym and amazing surroundings when things got stressful. I had food options when things got hungry. I was learning and bettering myself. I had a sense of purpose. I had cheese! Now I find myself without any of those things.

I've seen some places in my day and knew how Del Rio compared to most other big cities and small towns long before I moved to New York. So perhaps my cheerier outlook during my 2010 stint here was due to other factors. Maybe my two-day cheesemaking gig in Waco distracted me (an 11-hour commute I refuse to do again for safety, monetary and sanity reasons). Or maybe it was because I knew my stay would be much more temporary that time. Maybe I will feel better now if we had a house with a real kitchen for home cheesemaking and teaching cheesemaking classes, or a yard for some goats.

This image, my friends, is what the literati like to call
Juxtaposition

In any event, the transition of going from a whole lot of something to a whole lot of nothing has been, in a word, lame. I find myself rage-eating an entire tub of wine-infused cheese spread (glorified Easy Cheese) from a Holiday basket. Or standing over the sink while I devour a tub of pre-crumbled blue cheese that tastes like plastic. Just to get a fix.

But the worst part is the self-doubt. The wondering if my original plan was really such a genius idea. I've already realized in the last year that opening a retail store-front would force me back into the office doing administrative nonsense. And have I told you how much I freaking hate paperwork? But is cheesemaking much better for me? Sure it's more hands-on work, but I'm also a social creature. Would I really enjoy working completely alone over a pot or vat of cheese all day? Or did I love it so much ONLY because of the people I was able to work with and befriend?  I have met with a few goat breeders in the area, but do I really know how to handle an animal? My only pet in life has been a goldfish.

I have no idea what 2013 will have in store for me life-wise or cheese-wise. All I know, is that Jay-Z is full of crap. It is wholly false that making it in New York means you can make it anywhere. I'd like to see him try to start his career here. Jerk.