After A Year...

...I finally pulled my camera out last weekend. And I am so very, very glad I did.

Yardsticks

I think, sometimes, of his tiny studio apartment. Before I knew studio apartments existed. Of the futon frame and card table, the folding chair set up in the corner. A single chair. The meals we ate perched on the edge of the futon. The kitchen table abandoned and standing alone against the kitchen wall. I remember the heat, sweating itself, and the hum of the air conditioner, the tip of my nose frozen at night. Chilled and cozy-warm, all rolled up into one. I remember his nighttime routine of spraying the perimeter of the room with roach repellant, while I watched from under the covers. I remember how vastly I loved everything. The solitary folding chair, the yellow glow of the kitchen light, even those tiny roaches as they came out to play each night. Too young to know any better.

I walk the city streets often now. Choosing the thirty block walk over the ten minute subway ride. "Have to enjoy the city while the weather is nice!" I excuse myself. But I'd walk these blocks in the January winds. I have. This city saves me. From what, sometimes I do not know.

I think, now, of what thirty means. Salaries, mortgages, babies. The yardsticks by which I measure myself. "Kindling for the fire," I reassure myself, break them up, try to toss them aside. Furniture and pots and pans and a recipe book. I stood on a Manhattan rooftop bar during the first few minutes of my thirtieth year and declared that this was going to be a fun year. The colorful lights of Hell's Kitchen below, bright abundance.

I taped together the broken yardsticks when he asked me, quietly, my favorite question. Old ones: tidy cuticles, cute clothes, hair that behaves. My hair will never behave. I'd gladly never be called cute another day in my life. Yet I'm scrambling trying to find the pieces, trying to get the tape just right. New ones: restaurant week choices, tickets to the ballet, creme brulee pulled right from my oven. Absurd for me. And yet.

I think about how much I loved even those roaches. The hum of the air conditioner. The kitchen table we didn't need. I think about the city blocks I choose to walk over the subway lines. How this city saves me. How I know how to save myself. The lights of Hells Kitchen from above. The questions that still take my breath away.

That's enough. I am enough.

all of the above.

sanity.
long walks from columbus circle to herald square. two cups of coffee a day. text messages. “MUST update you. very good meeting.” of course, of course. friendship with that much urgency. rambled email messages that say more than the words i write and to know i’m heard. dinner with my brother. shared quiet moments at the end of charged-sparked ride. songs on repeat. hooded sweatshirts that smell like dryer sheets. requesting hugs. used novels on amazon. hot lattes. writing.


insanity.
redundant complaints up and down the sidewalks. stomping. un-dried hair, medusa default. a bedroom without a light. contradictory instructions. heavy responsibility without any authority. two-thirty am work sessions. trying not to wait for the phone to ring. incomplete assignments - mine. six years of coursework. mistaking frustration for stress. loneliness. the way she looks at him. unpacked bags. unpacked boxes. unpacked emotions. anticipating a subway cry. 


life.
the lake. even on a rainy evening. his courage. her church whispers. when they both say “...didn’t burst into flames.” honesty. kindness. watching us (us, us, us) eat in the college dining hall more than ten years later. four hours of tears. red autumn leaves. realizing i already let it all go. for the better. unintentionally making him laugh so hard water comes out his nose.  “what are you thinking?” in a quiet that matches my quiet. to be known, in a moment, in a decade, in a single glance, in an old, familiar squeeze of the hand. i am here.

A House

I picked us out a house in the country. An old Victorian with a wraparound porch and crickets that we can hear through the screen door in the kitchen. Their chirps in the background of our murmured conversation. One last cup of coffee for the night. The dishes drying in the rack and your finger aimlessly tracing my knuckles as you talk.

I am carefully disassembling the house now. The table's empty; I'm not sure you'll even hear. The soft pop of each shingle, the swing of the door out only - each screw in the hinges removed. Board by board, I take down the walls and neatly pile the lumber. I know better, I have learned better, than to be a wrecking ball, slamming into its side - and then crumbling along with it. I wish instead to be a Notebook page and still build us a staircase, fix the leaky faucet, watch the geese migrate from the front porch. But I am of the faithless. I am taking up the floorboards of a house we never bought.

You're holding the door as she laughs her way through it. I'm looking to the moon out the train window.





[I never intended to leave this space for so long. Which makes me uneasy to say I've "returned" or unpack the (mostly boring) reasons I've been gone so long. I don't want to say "I'm back!" and then unintentionally disappear again. But if I do unintentionally disappear, I want to let you know I'm still pretty active on tumblr, twitter, and instagram (links to the right). And if I do, I'll be back again. Of that I am sure.]

June Third Two Thousand Thirteen

Hard, horizontal rain and the broken umbrella with one spoke sticking out, sharp-edged and pointed. Hot coffee down the front on my dress, first-day impressions undone in the humidity, rain, unexpected and unplanned for, I should have known, I should have known. Duck into the bathroom to run my fingers through my hair before I walk through the office door and slink into the seat in the corner, next to the empty desk with the empty chair. I could wait for years and he'd never slip into that chair, I am learning, I am learning. I could wait for years and I would still have the desk in the corner, I am learning, I am learning. I worry about this summer with the too-long hours and the studying and the rain and the rain and the rain. How many years have passed and the summer rain still undoes me. Clouds gray all day. At 5pm it downpours, and I suddenly wish for a place on that old couch in the old apartment with the rain slamming its fists against the window. There I had a place on the bathroom floor and the faucet I could turn on to muffle the sounds of my sobs. And no one knew, and no one knew.

It's a click here and a click there and the end comes, brilliant with a plus in front of the first letter, the first letter, and this should have been a celebration, success of this kind in its highest form, but I learned long, long ago to measure success differently. Of course, these days I've failed. Failed in the largest way possible because I feel like I've failed. New foundations of measured success, abandoned, step one: "beyond a wholesome discipline, be kind to yourself." I am back to step one and suddenly relieved to have the chair empty beside me, to be sitting in the corner. Drenched by the rain, wearing my morning coffee, reciting Desiderata. Over and over again.

June Second Two Thousand Thirteen

Sun-kissed shoulders and knee caps, the red lipstick kind. A few hours in the afternoon sun, the evening's cool breeze swirling the ringlets on the base of my neck. Amid errands, to-do lists, check-out lines, subway delays, hot pavement, escalators that go up and up and up; small moments strung together. Of warm lips on the top of my nose and cool fingers on the triangle between my shoulders. Melted strawberry cheesecake ice cream and gulps of ice cold water. Summer, a promise to string together the small moments amid and amid and amid. Open windows and the playful jazz notes that come dancing through on Sunday summer nights. Flashes of lightening across the dark, dark sky.






[a promise to string together the small moments amid and amid and amid]

Recognition & Re-cognition

Yesterday, on my morning subway ride, I looked up and saw my reflection. Oh, yes, there I am. Not a passing thought, but steady and centered, it held onto me for a while. Hair half-dried, half-wet, black trench coat tied lop-sided with the belt hanging down to my knees, skinny jeans, and black ballet flats. A recognition, re-cognition, of the lines of my legs, the curves of my waist, the slight arch of my shoulders. Balanced and full and calm. There I am. Recognition and re-cognition, as if I had been missing all this time. All these years. As if I always knew I'd be standing there on the A train on a Thursday morning in my twenty-ninth year, despite and in spite and because of it all. Waiting for only myself. Oh yes, there I am.

Here I am. 

Wanted: Local BFF

Wanted: Local best friend who loves coffee and/or tea and/or wine, meandering conversation, and silly jokes. Must have a penchant for long emails, late-night confessions, and stargazing. (Translation for stargazing: a hunt for direction, light, and hope amid the city's concrete and skyscrapers. A sincere belief that we can find them, even if, even if...) An appreciation for words in any form is a bonus. Must be familiar with the falling down aspects of life but mostly with the getting back up part. Ideally finds over-communication endearing. Willing to spend too much time pondering what-did-he-mean-when-he-said, even when we both know he meant precisely what he said. Hoping for someone who likes five minute phone calls mid-afternoon to discuss whether or not vitamin water goes bad and can handle almost-panicked phone calls at 11:49 pm about a helicopter flying over the apartment searching for three men who held up a bodega at gunpoint. Someone who knows when to insist on an immediate glass of wine to analyze all the details and who also has a thing for long-term plans. Someone who had no judgmental tendencies of anyone, ever. Well, almost ever. Most importantly, must be intimately familiar with the concept of throwing oneself into the unknown in the name of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and figuring it out along the way. Actually, the very most important quality - just knows how to be a good friend.


[I am very, very grateful to have many wonderful friends in my life who match this description. I'd just like one a little closer by, please.]

a thousand thank yous

I know I will return to the very best parts of these weeks tiny moment by tiny moment. Days upon days of lightness and joy best revisited breath by breath, heartbeat by heartbeat. The unexpected emails, the one question interview - would you like this position? - the sweet taste of peanut butter frosting, the choreographed syllables of the word collaborate, the night air streaming in the window as he does surveillance of the neighborhood - my neighborhood deemed safe by the best of the best - the side silhouette of a city I call home on a midnight bus to DC, a tour of the new office, his arm resting on the center consul between us.

A thousand thank yous I sent across the avenues and down the streets on foggy mornings and snowy afternoons, sent upward beyond the tops of the buildings and through subway tunnels. And still, a thousand thank yous could never be enough for the moments when life swoops me up and carries me over the thresholds of doorways I once deemed closed-doored and dead-bolted. Again and evermore, thank you.


 

{ a case of you }

trav·el  /ˈtravəl/ verb: make a journey, typically of some length or abroad.

Long car rides, cross-atlantic-cross-pacific-cross-continental plane rides. Baggies full of candy, playlists composed, sunglasses pushed up over our foreheads, sitting on the bridges of our noses. A gentle shift of the transmission, hand over mine at takeoff, open windows, the place where the night sky kisses the dark tops of trees. Song lyrics belted out, palms and fingertips against the steering wheel drum set, laughter and laughter and laughter... Backpacks or suitcases, off-the-beaten-path tiny coffee houses where the locals discuss town politics and fine wine, the golden light of the Eiffel Tower at sunset, late nights or early mornings, afternoon naps, crackers or steak for dinner. Showers optional and sleeping bags rolled up, champagne room service, say hello in every language. Step by step, the miles rolling by, side by side, you and I.

On Social Science and Matters of the Heart

"You look tired," he approached the topic gently. "Are you tired?"

There are all the ways I wanted to respond.

I watch the clock change to 1:45 am and force myself to shut/put/close it off/down. The book, the article, the computer, my journal. Its pages filling since September with run-on sentences and multi-colored ink. All of it, all. of. it. perhaps, with run-on sentences and multi-colored ink. Trying to make sense of. I chastise myself for confusion and the time lost, the hours ticking by on the clock, and so little to show for it all.

Or I force myself to crawl into bed moments after I walk through the door. 10:30 pm filled with hope for an easy descent into a dream. Hope drains and the hours fill with worry. Theories and data and what has come before and what I want to come after. I see 1:45 am and chastise myself and finally collapse into darkness.

My roommates come and go at all hours of the night. Visitors parading through our kitchen and shouts catapulted from the street towards our windows. After-hours showers at 4:30 am. Night and day, week and weekend, all mix and swirl. I roll over, careful not to fall off the edge of my narrow mattress, temporary turned permanent. I think this must be the early, carefree twenties that I missed. I think of everything I chose over that. Everything I chose that led me to this. 4 am and the twenties and then suddenly the thirties.

I screeched in the hallway the other day before class. Accidental and involuntary, I hardly recognized it as my own voice. Everyone looked at me, as startled as I, and I blurted out quickly before I lost my nerve, before I lost the truth, that I am tired of hearing about shriveled, old eggs. Tactless, yes. But only as a mirror of the tactlessness in which it is thrown my way. Without the necessary conversations, the necessary understanding. As if I am not also up against that ticking clock and watching the hours turn into years. As if I have none of the same decisions, the same struggles, the same hopes and dreams. I may not, but it is not known, it is not considered, it is not set in stone. These words, thrust my way, as if I am a non-participant, other than, not-seen. "That is on you," she said. And she's right. But it's still a heavy weight to bear alone.

"Do you want children?" he asked me one evening. I took a deep breath and pulled away from the leather couch already sucking me in and enunciated each word with its matching weight, "Right now, I don't want to raise a child as a single mother," I began. He laughed loudly and said that's the most cynical sentence he has ever heard, did I really feel that way about love? I didn't try to explain that it is perhaps the least cynical sentence I could have produced; that it's filled with hope and possibility. Hope and possibility for love and life and life and love and life and love and love and life... both and the spaces in between and for all the ways they combine. It's not the 'no' of my early twenties, it's not the 'yes' of somebody else's early twenties, it's a yes to life and love and however they combine. To hope and possibility and life and love and their endless combinations, I answer yes.

My alarm goes off at 6:45 am and I forget to calculate the five hours between the shut off, shut down, and the alarm. I've never been good with numbers and estimate eight hours of sleep. Heavy eyes, heavy bones, achy skin, a tiny bed in an unpacked room in a quiet apartment. I can barely roll over, getting up seems out of the question. The thought that I'll never be a morning person brings me to the brink of tears. Don't fall back to sleep, don't fall back to sleep, don't fall back to sleep becomes a semi-mantra, half asleep still, fighting with every demon I have. I think of the kids walking to school, the professionals sipping coffee in their cars as they commute to work, the stay-at-home mothers who have already made two batches of chocolate chip cookies. I diagnosis myself with some type of sleep-inducing disease, some form of mono. I worry I am depressed. Every morning. It's the bone-chilling fear of that black hole that leads me to finger counting. 5 hours of sleep. Minus the 4 am shouting. I am not depressed. I get out of bed. Some day, I will be a morning person.

The days are long and short and orderly and disorderly. Every day. Always, always filled. With the best of the best of gratitude and hope and life and love and their endless possibilities. Cynical? It's laughable. Depressed? Haha. Tired? There's always more coffee. I've learned, since 14, since 19, since 25, to make my decisions in the daylight.

I am terrified by my decisions. An innate disbelief in security, a trust for the disregard of risk. This is who I am. By my nature, by my nurture. My nurture as in what I choose to tell myself, what I choose for life-design, that which I value. The terror is still exhausting, of course.

"To collect your own data will take a year or two longer," we are instructed. I already know I will collect my own data. It will take me longer. I planned and planned and planned to do this and that by then and now. Those plans based on other people's data, other people's theories, based on other people's methods. Data and theories and methods and plans that crumbled under testing. My life as the test. I let it crumble. If I have agency, I will find it; therefore, I let it crumble. I will collect my own data. It will take me longer. It is the best of myself. It is all of myself.

"To collect your own data will be more expensive," we are warned. I think of the price I have already paid. In square footage, in paychecks, in evenings on the couch watching Friends re-runs, in road trips south, in mortgage payments, in double beds, in Friday happy hours, in hours of sleep. Yet, I only know the price I am not willing to pay - the price of hope and possibility and life and love. I know which is more expensive.

Significance. That is the goal of social science research. Data collection and theories and methods all should result in significance. It means something. The patterns point to something. It is not random. Perhaps it wasn't actual, by definition, data collection that I did last semester. Perhaps it was more the assembling of already available data into something I wanted to interpret. But still, I tried. Data and theory and method and... no significance. Of no importance. Random. Means nothing.

Last week, after trying again, after assembling different data, data that took longer to assemble and took into account a broader depiction, I found significance. It was, in some ways, the same - different measures but the same concepts, the same theories, the same units. I just had to look harder, look again, look broader. "You must be so excited," I heard a few times from a few people. I was. I was. But I also found insignificance last week. In a quiet, tucked away corner, I collected data, compiled theories, assembled a method and ran a test. The results came back insignificant. Of no importance. Random. Means nothing. Except that I have learned, when it is your life, insignificance means everything.

I went for a walk alone Friday night. Down through lower Manhattan as rush hour turned into happy hour turned into moonlit hours. For miles and hours, I walked alone. Amid twenty-somethings crowding the sidewalk in small groups, amid thirty-something couples who meandered the crosswalks holding hands. I thought about significance. What has turned out to be my insignificant twenties. How much I fear the same for my thirties.

He would be the first to tell me that my twenties were not insignificant. He has, time and time again. He knows how to rearrange the data. And yet, he is the one at whom I wanted to scream "INSIGNIFICANT!" Friday night. Loud and full of emotion. And I wanted him, unlike the others, to hear the hope and the possibility and the love and the life. I kept my mouth shut. The burden too heavy to bear if he only heard cynicism. I walked the night away, instead.

"You look tired," he approached the topic gently. "Are you tired?"

There are all the ways I wanted to respond.

And then there is the way I did respond.

"Yes, I think I need to get more sleep."

Note to Self

[Notes to Myself - To be Received at Age 21, April 2005]

That pamphlet on the PeaceCorps you have sitting on your desk? It doesn't go away. You'll lose it or toss it or hand it off to somebody else but it never actually goes away. You can fill a binder with AmeriCorps paperwork and it still doesn't go away. The LLBean employee you stopped to inquire about backpacking with a petite frame? Don't feel guilty for taking up her time. You'll think of her advice for years and years and wonder if perhaps that dream would be a reality already if you actually purchased that backpack. The unearthed plan doesn't go away either. In fact, it takes flight in your body, zipping from your heart to your head to your lungs. You'll take the deepest breaths when it is what pumps your lungs in and out. The midnight sprint you made across campus to catch him, to tell him you love him, the bodies you ran past without caring about their faces or your face, damp with tears of both yes and no, and maybe you've never felt this certain and this unsure in your entire life? That is what every real, true yes in your entire life feels like. Every other yes will become a no over time. The sustaining, the life sustaining, yeses move you. They physically move you. Across campus, down to your knees, up the city avenues - quickly and forcefully and urgently and without the need for thought. Without the need for thought. The others become others - bodies not to crash into. They can't stop you, they can't encourage you, because you don't see them, you don't see their thoughts on their faces, you don't hear their opinions, all you feel is forward movement, almost not fast enough. When certainty and uncertainty mix together, cursing through your veins, you think it might kill you on the spot. As though battery acid has replaced blood and you might actually be a Kerouac star - "burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars." And in those moments there is nothing better than exploding like a spider across the night sky.

These true yeses don't go away.  Other true yeses arrive.  They cannot be ignored.  They feed your lungs, your heart, your soul.   Always.
Plan accordingly. They always arrive. They always arrive on time. Make room for them. Wait for them. Build your life on them. Trust them.

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...

-------------------------------

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.