Just last summer, as I was shredding through the backcountry of Cerro Catedral in Argentina, I was 99 percent certain I was going to quit real life and add a new job title to my roster – “snowboard bum.”  But it seems that life had a bigger plan for me, and that plan was called “The Real World.” 

You may recall my announcement last year that I decided to leave LA (temporarily, of course. Now I’m back) and move to Washington, DC to get my MBA degree at The George Washington University.  It was somewhat a spontaneous decision, but I was ready to move on with my career, and I also saw this as the perfect opportunity to move to the East Coast for a bit. 

As a grad. student, my free time slowly began to shrink, and as a result, so did the time I had to dedicate to Westbound Boarder.  Living in DC, there really aren’t a lot of places to go snowboarding (well, places that don’t require a 4+ hour drive and overnight stay, anyway) and there isn’t any form of action sports scene.  Couple that with the sheer amount of time I gave away to homework, studying, and extracurricular activities, I simply just wasn’t motivated to blog anymore.  Its hard to blog about a scene that’s not really there (heck, the only legit thing I’d be able to blog about in DC is politics, or school which I’ve already done).  I miss it, and I miss snowboarding and surfing, too.  But now that I’m back in LA and I can feel the adrenaline pumping through my veins once again, with just the thought of picking up my surfboard and heading down to the nearest wave.         

I’ve done a whole lot of reflecting this past year, especially this summer now that I’m back in a 9 to 5 job (ugh).  I love working, but I also love snowboarding, and I’ve finally started to ask myself, can I ever have both?  Or will I eventually have to let “The Real World” get the best of me and settle down? 

The more I think about it, the more I think that it is possible to have the best of both worlds.  But with one exception.  I have to learn to make compromises.  I have to learn to accept the fact that I’ll only ever get to take one big snowboard trip, maybe two, per year with my measly two-weeks vacation.  I’ll have to live with long-line, weekend riding only.  I’ll have to pick and choose which events and competitions I want to go watch and blog about.  And I have to make snowboarding and traveling a priority every minute I’m not behind a desk.  On the plus side, I’ll finally start having money to travel to and snowboard at the places I’ve always been wanting to go, like France, Turkey, and Japan (yay!)  I’ll be able to stay at nice hotels with fancy hot tubs (hot tubs we don’t sneak into, anyway).  And I’ll be able to watch my kids (one day!!) stand up on their first snowboard and eventually turn into little rippers. 

So that’s my thought on life.  I know we’d all like to quit life and become snowboard bums.  But for most people, that just ain’t in the cards.  I know the saying, “You only have one life to live, so live it,” but I also know the feeling of “Oh $#!& I’m broke!” or “now what?”  While the time we all spend on the hill creates priceless memories, let’s not discount the time we spend in the office, too.  I know I’m going to start looking at things in a different light from here on out, and accept reality, while also knowing that it is possible to “have my cake and eat it too.”