A Favorite & A Reminder

The spring semester is a little over 24 hours away. I'm leaving this photo here as a reminder to find breathing space. It makes a world of difference.

Lessons learned. The hard way.

If it doesn't seem like a good fit, it probably isn't. 

If it feels like you are being taken advantage of, you probably are.

If you don't stand up for yourself, no one else will.

If you don't think they will stand up for you in your absence, they probably won't.

If you don't take the credit, somebody else will. 

Don't give away what you value most to somebody who doesn't recognize it for more than its innate value, who doesn't recognized what it meant for you to give it away. 

If you are given what you deserve and then have it taken away at his/her/their discretion and convenience, it's effed-up and has nothing to do with you. But it's up to you to find a way to have what you deserve consistently.

If there has been a lesson that I have learned over and over and over again in the past three and a half years, it's trust yourself, trust yourself, trust yourself, trust yourself. I do now and I act on that trust (and sometimes question my sanity) but every once in a while remnants of the past surface and I find myself reviewing that lesson over again. This afternoon it was with tears streaming down my face. Lessons learned and book closed, I remind myself. Book closed.

Turned Into...

It's cold here. Not as cold as, as cold as, as cold as, but cold enough to wrap a scarf around my mouth and nose, cold enough to want bottomless cups of coffee, tea, hot chocolate, cold enough to want warm blankets wrapped around both shoulders and tucked under all ten toes.

The surprise full time job turned into surprise the office will be renovated; turned into the vacant computer lab at school with florescent lights; turned into my tiny, unpacked bedroom in Brooklyn with walls still too white, so silent, too silent other than the clacking of my keyboard; turned into noisy nyc cafes, shared tables, lines for an electrical outlet, glances my way because I've sat for too long; turned into a train ride home to CT, a cozy couch, a cuddly pup, warm, home-cooked dinners.  

Impromptu decision to hop that train, impromptu decision to stay and to stay and to stay. Follow these, I've learned, these impromptu decisions. They almost always lead to what I need, what I want, what is better than I even hoped. 

Quiet space, filled with quiet melodies, bottomless coffee, homemade soup simmering in the crock pot, sweatpants, warm blankets, gingerbread jar candle with a dancing flame...

Work I believe in. A continuation. A new chapter. Go forth and complete, and I can, because I have already. 

It turned into, turned into, turned into, turned into frozen days in January filled with unexpected warmth.  Filled with gratitude.

The Ups and the Downs

I think I mentioned (in one of my many posts on how I was finding it difficult to write) that I have a number of posts sitting as drafts because they just don't quite say what it is I was trying to say. Below is a post written in the second week of September. Fast forward four months (four months!??!) and I'm deciding to post it because look, I actually wrote something this past semester! Interesting how standards fall... ANYWAY, this was life in mid-September...

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It's the ups and the downs of this transition that tire me the most.

Fall crept into the city Friday afternoon. The sun warmed rather than baked and a cool breeze swept down the streets. I sat in his office and we talked about things that I haven't talked about in years. Topics and names I haven't uttered since I left Vermont. "Spark. What makes a kid spark?" Those are the questions that make me spark. Ooohh, it's the good stuff.

I met my brother in the park and told him I was never leaving this city. I talked a mile a minute and his head nodded and he waited for me to propel off my chair. I might have been levitating; I wouldn't have noticed. And his life? His life is going well, too. I can see it in his eyes. I get to see it in his eyes. Friday evening conversations with my brother, it's the good stuff. 

One the way home, the flag flying above the Brooklyn Bridge stood proud in its spotlight and over my shoulder the Chrystler Building and Empire State Building defined the night skyline. They are my constants now, while the sight of the 9/11 light beams on my walk home earlier in the week prompted teary eyes. It was a first, and I didn't expect "visible from everywhere in the city" to actually mean everywhere. Chills. The chills on my walk home Friday night came courtesy of the cool breeze and I walked home to the sounds of early fall crickets. How did I get so lucky?

When I walked in the door to my house, I noticed that something felt a bit off. One of my roommates abruptly moved out on Thursday, without telling the rest of us. Which is concerning but not surprising - we're pretty independent in that house. Nothing like the friendships I formed this past year with my old roommates in DC, who I miss every single day. I noticed the mail from my roommate who has been MIA for the past month had disappeared, and I assumed it made its way back to the post office. There had been rumblings in the house that she had just left this city without notice and left all of her things behind, including the car in the driveway. Really?

When I went up to my room, my bedroom door was locked. I knew I had not locked it when I left. Someone had been in my room. When I walked in, my things looked in tact. It didn't look like there was an intruder. And what intruder would lock the door upon leaving? It had to have been my landlord or my roommate, the one who moved out, and the one who I quickly realized had a spare set of keys to my room. My dresser stood a few inches from my wall. I certainly did not have it that far from the wall. My room is a shoebox; I need all the inches I can get.

I finally, finally noticed that the cable box was missing. I don't have a television, so it was sitting idly on my dresser under a pile of books. If the cable box was missing... that meant we didn't have internet service. The roommate who moved out had the account in her name; she must have returned the cable boxes and modem. Sure enough, downstairs no longer contained an internet router and when I walked back into my room I saw a letter from the old roommate confirming she had moved out and would now be the superintendent of the apartment. Her uncle is the landlord. I had just learned this on Tuesday. Internet would be out for at least four days. Excellent. I had a four-day weekend and no internet. Which means I would have to make the hour and a half commute to school to get work done.

It was a split second decision to take a train to Connecticut and spend the weekend at my mom's with internet service and home cooked meals. A split second decision that I can make at 11pm Friday night and hop aboard the 9am train Saturday morning.

It's the ups and the downs of this transition that tire me the most. But it's the ability to make split second decisions that rejuvenate me the most. 

the years that grew me

spotify playlists. winter nights i fall asleep in a tank-top (warm bedroom, low heating bill). a room with a built-in bookshelf. spontaneous sunday morning coffee with my brother. night train rides over the brooklyn bridge - the empire state building, the chrysler building all lit up. dark cherry floorboards. bedtimes past midnight. unexpected text messages. subway reading. late dinners at whole foods, scrolling through tumblr. bus rides to maine. weekend drives through ct. cups of coffee. a wide wooden windowsill. thoughts of red lip stain, i can if i want.

"tiny beautiful things." how quickly i forget.

it feels as though i am beginning again. so i will begin again. to collect the tiny beautiful things. which are hardly ever things at all.

below - a half complete post, written a few days before the hurricane hit, before i had even an inkling that life would change again, before i left that house and never really returned. perhaps i knew change was coming, the way the barometric pressure drops before a storm. or perhaps i had no idea, because months later, it feels a bit like the storm should have been over years ago and yet it's not over yet.

collect the tiny beautiful things. a reminder, for myself, as i begin again.

"It might be  Meg's post still lingering in my thoughts (as her posts tend to do), but as I grabbed my towel this morning and headed for the shower, I had a surprising and distinct thought:

This is all going to pass by in an instant and I'm going to miss it. 

There is a lot to unpack in that brief thought, but I'll say this much for now: It is the first time I have looked around at less than ideal living circumstances and felt it all coming to an end. The small bedrooms, the bathrooms shared with so many that towels are kept in our rooms, the closets packed full because it's the best place to store all the things, the only place to store all the things. 

It is the first time I haven't pleaded with the universe to grant me unending space - a place of my own at the very least. It was a sudden realization that this phase of my life (roommates and shared fridges) will end soon and when it does I'll think of these years (so many years) as the years that grew me." 

[october twenty four, two thousand twelve] 

[tiny beautiful things, of course, is her phrase]

Uncertainty & Newness

Confession: I should be socializing at a swanky midtown financial firm right now. Instead, I am curled up under the covers in my bed. I feel over-the-top guilty for flaking on this event, but I could hardly entertain the idea of dressing up, smiling wide, and making small talk with people I don't know or don't care to see, never mind actually go. Just the thought of it exhausts me. Hence, the bed and blankets rather than the dress and heels.

I am overwhelmed. That's not the first time I've confessed that, I know. I keep thinking I will catch up and my calendar will clear and I will have time to take a deep breath before diving in again. I'm realizing it's not a matter of catching up or waiting for my calendar to clear. It's not that I'm busybusybusy and just have a lot things to check off a list. (Actually, it is that in part, but it's more, too.) It's a sense that I am fumbling around in the dark; it's a fear that I'm acting without the guidance of priorities and values; it's a whole lot of uncertainty and newness.

It is a whole lot of uncertainty and newness. It's still a new city and new school and new apartment (times two) and new roommates (times two) and new job and new classmates and new acquaintances and the list goes on... Do these types of transitions get harder as one gets older? Or is it just that I've had quite a few of them pile up in my twenties - central NY, VT, ME, CT, DC, and NYC?

I went to Maine this past weekend to hug my friends and try on bridesmaid dresses and drink coffee I love and order food at places that still know my name and pick up old conversations where they last left off and remember what winter looks like with snow and hold on so tightly to people I love. To who people who love me. It was easy and free and joyful. To know and be known.

Still, I am happier living in NYC than I was living in Maine. My life in the city fits better, gives me more room to breathe, more room to grow, more room to love. "Do you miss Portland?" he asked from California over facetime while I stood in his kitchen. "Yes, but I love New York," I told him. His answer? "I know." They all know, we all know, and maybe that is why I returned to the city Sunday evening and proceeded to spend the past two days again feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, and uncertain. How do I even begin to build a life here that sustains my love of this city?

I thought it meant saying yes and yes and yes to almost everything but especially to things that involve the possibility of new friends here in the city. I miss my far-away friends. That's something I could confess almost every hour of every day.

Tonight, as I faced yet another attempt to find people in the city who might come to know me the way my far-away friends know me, I realized that only some form of myself would show up at the event tonight. Some cranky, exhausted, overwhelmed, uncomfortable shell of myself would try to smile calmly and listen intently and speak intelligently. I would think about every movement, every syllable, and every reaction while completely ignoring everything I was feeling. Well, that's a solid way to perpetuate my feelings of disconnection that I've had lately. Hrmph.

So I decided not to go. I'm exhausted, overwhelmed, uncertain, uncomfortable, disconnected, and I miss my friends. I don't feel like going. And I think that's fine. Nobody is counting on me going other than the office assistant who took my formal RSVP and the kind-of co-worker who talked me into going but never really followed up with me. I'll feel guilty about it for a while I am sure, but right now it's more important to me that I stay true to my feelings of being overwhelmed, exhausted, uncomfortable, etc, etc, etc. I've ignored them long enough, hoping they would just go away. They didn't, so now I think it's time to direct my attention their way and hang out with them a bit.

And maybe after I've spent some time listening to those feelings and getting some sleep and checking things off my to-do list, I'll be in a better headspace to make a nearby friend or two. And maybe, little by little, I'll build a life here that I love as much as I love this city.

Leaps and Nets

"I think what I'm really looking for is some stability."

It was an unintentional confession that slipped out between fries and took me by surprise more than him. "Of course," he nodded, "it will come with time. Grad school is really one big leap of faith in which you hope the net appears in the future."

I agreed quickly, but I couldn't help but think of the bumps, scrapes, and bruises I got from the last time I took the leap. The last time when the net wasn't there. Forget bumps, scrapes, and bruises - I have wounds and scars.

But don't we all?

Maybe not from grad school (or law school) but from some time when we took a giant leap of faith and expected the net to be there in the future. And maybe the net wasn't there and maybe we will carry scars with us for the rest of our lives as a result. But maybe those scars don't hurt as much as they once did and we forget about them for longer or maybe we start to think of them as what makes us who we are and maybe even learn to love them a little bit along the way. And maybe we take the leap again.

I took the almost very same leap again. I'm proud of myself for it.

I spent Saturday walking around Brooklyn, exploring neighborhoods, thinking of the condo I want to buy someday. Someday kinda maybe soonish - as in a handful of years from now rather than a handful of decades. It's the same type of daydreaming I used to do five years ago, with thirty on my mind. It unexpectedly and quickly became impossible and that was somewhat heartbreaking.  So I put it aside and I haven't thought of it much in the past few years. But on Saturday those daydreams unexpectedly reemerged and I wondered around new neighborhoods, piecing together a new timeline. A timeline built on faith that this time the net will appear.

It's the faith in the net of which I'm most proud.

Leaping the second time took no more faith than knowing the lack of net didn't kill me the first time, so it probably wouldn't kill me a second time. Leaping the second time meant only putting my faith in my ability to survive. Faith the net will appear means more to me. It means I might not have to do it all on my own. I might actually thrive.

And if I can take this leap again and have faith this net will appear again, then maybe I can start taking a few other leaps of faith and one day believe in those nets again, too.




p.s. "leap and the net will appear" was an old mantra of mine years and years ago. i'm glad it's reappearing again.

Two Thousand Thirteen Begins...

I have been thinking a lot the past week and a half about this past year. How quickly it went by and how much has changed and how if someone asked me to describe it in one word it would be "action." I decided to go back to school, said yes to anything that involved friends and/or travel, quit my job, left friends I love in DC, moved to NYC, began yet another degree, weathered a displacement by Sandy, moved for a second time, launched myself into schoolwork and new relationships, went Christmas shopping, spent some quality time with family, slept, talked to Nicole, and watched the ball drop. Voila - here we are on the first day of 2013.

It was a year of literal and figurative movement. I loved it. It was one of the best years I've had in a long, long time.

It was also a bit of a whirlwind. I still haven't unpacked my boxes from my second move. I still have school books sitting on my brother's desk. I owe 17,000 people emails, text messages, phone calls, and visits. I'm never quite certain of my zip code.

More importantly, I write here far less. I haven't picked up my camera since early October. I'm more than a bit foggy on my intentions for the new year. All signs of disconnection with myself. *Sigh.*

It's easy to blame it on the busy and consuming school schedule. On the move. On both moves. On the thrill and excitement of living in a dream city. None leave a lot of time for reflection or expression or quiet observation.

This isn't the post I wanted to write to kick of the new year. I wanted sparkles and glitter and fireworks and french horns. I wanted to keep blogging the way I blogged a year ago, two years ago. But here's the thing: the less often I write, the harder it is to return to writing. I'm rusty and disjointed. I have at least a dozen half-finished posts sitting in my drafts folder. I'm rusty, then impatient, then frustrated, then I quit.

I started this blog on January 1, 2009 determined to return to blogging the way I blogged in 2006. I wrote despite the rusty disjointedness, the impatience, the frustration. And after about a year of consistent effort, I finally found my voice again. But here we are one more time. And again, despite the rusty disjointedness, the impatience, and the frustration, I'm determined to return to blogging the way I blogged in 2006 2011. Write more, take more photos, and invest in healthy habits - those were my resolutions* in 2009 and I'm returning to them for 2013.

Wishing you and yours a very happy new year!



*I actually am a bit anti-resolution and more into dreaming and scheming for the new year. But until I actually dive into that work fun, I'm going to start now with a list of resolutions.