Meet me at the crossroads

There are, as you might expect, good and bad things about what I'm doing.

The good: my co-workers are nice, my apartment and neighborhood in the Southeast are pedestrian-friendly and beautiful.

The tough: my job isn't quite what was presented to me, my commute is long-ish and requires a car most days, the absence of any and all family and friends is getting to me.

See, here's what you need to understand about me. There's no reason you should know this, since it's something I've only really figured out this past year or so. Relationships are the central part of my life. When I'm around people I love, I thrive. Life may have been pretty dismal these last six months, but the presence of a few key friends and my parents did wonders for my mental state on most days. Which, of course, coincided with many of the days I didn't blog. I need to fix that. Anyway, now? The one thing I didn't factor into this move -- because how could I know? -- was how empty it would feel without anyone here. Sure, you're right: I can still talk to them on the phone...but while that works for some people, I need to see you, to touch you, to be able to pop over to a meeting spot on a moment's notice so we can vent about our days or laugh over a pint.

So right now? Right now, I'm a little scared. A co-worker confided in me today that this job -- environmental consulting around a major transportation project -- isn't like she thought it would be. You don't get to do the environmental work. You don't have time. Your hours are sucked away by menial tasks and public meetings, and because we are at a satellite office, there's really no one around to talk to about the problem, as our own supervisor is so swamped that I've seen her all of three times this week (for five minutes, maybe). I think I can spin this work in a positive direction after a year or two, pitching it on my resume as a skill-builder in a related field, but transportation is terribly boring work for most of us (and, as I'm learning, I fall under the "most" category there). The thought of being trapped in it makes me a little queasy. I have to work to find the positives here, and I'm sure there are many. It's just a tad disappointing, especially when I find out this morning that they are hiring new people for my position in Seattle. And everyone here seems so amazed I relocated for this. The timing, it's a bitch.

And the commute? By the time I get home, I'm beyond exhausted. I can cook, unpack a box or two, and then it's 9:00 and I have to get ready for bed. No real time to explore my cool neighborhood. No time to write. Definitely no time to meet new people, which really sucks. I know it won't always be like this, but I'm starting to wonder if I need to take advantage of my month-to-month lease and move closer into where my office is located. I'm so tired right now that I want to curl up in bed and cry, but that won't help. Still, it's tempting.

The absence of friends? It's confirmed things I was starting to realize, like how I never want to leave my town again. I went back yesterday for a training at the main office, and the very sight of it made my heart hurt. Spent an hour after the training with a friend at Seward Park, and everything clicked. I know this sounds stupid. It's three hours away, right? Even working as many weekends as I do, I should still be able to get home once in awhile. Why can't that be enough? But I know a few people who feel the same, and all I can say is that right now, it's the absence of people I love which comes the closest to making this all unbearable. I can't articulate it, but trust this much: it is everything to me.

So, herein I also realize something crucial about the major relationship in my life, even if it is sort of on hiatus most of the year because of the 8000 miles between us. I don't want us to live somewhere else after he finishes his degree. I'm tired of feeling like our life has to wait. After 10 moves in four years, I'm sick of being nomadic. I want us home. Starting a life together. Buying that first, scary house together. Spending our evenings lingering on friends' front lawns, talking and laughing. Doing all the things that we can do now: let the moving boxes gather dust, find a place we can call our own, have two incomes in one household again. Back to school? It will happen for me, but I've already decided to do it close to home, and I'm content to wait awhile. That dream job? You know, if I can fulfill the personal side of life, I think I'd even be okay with transportation. Well, maybe not quite, but I don't think so much would hinge on finding the "perfect" job. Right now, that's all I have. I don't want to feel that way for long. Am I doing this without him? Yes. Does that mean I want to? God, no. We could each spend our lives working to reach the tops of our fields, and that would be all we had. Instead, I want to reach somewhere good enough career-wise, and end up with so much more in the process.

I'm done being transient. I want to put down what remains of my roots and stay there until there are too many rings on my trunk to count. With all this looming, my other half comes home to visit tomorrow for two brief weeks. Seventeen days to balance the fun with the seriousness. Things I don't feel right posting yet. We have so much to discuss. And it terrifies me.

Taking a breather

In light of my current situation, my best friend is flying me to Kansas to visit her this weekend. Have I mentioned how much I love my friends? Shut up, going to Kansas is *not* punishment. I'm sure there's something fun to do in her tiny little town. Like seeing how far the car can drive in a straight line without touching the steering wheel. Now, if I can just get over this random fear of flying thing. Perhaps I shall drink my way across the flyover states. On second thought, that would probably be a bad idea. Guess I'll just have to annoy the person sitting next to me instead. Be back Tuesday.

With love, from me

Dear Internet friends,

You are all lovely people. I can't tell you how much better I'm feeling after your calls, posts and emails. Just having you in my life makes it much, much easier to bear things of late.

Well, that, and getting to meet with landowners in a place I will never dare mention by name. It's always enlightening to see firsthand what happens when government agencies don't handle rural landowners with sensitivity. Namely, Operation Sneaky (no, I am not kidding), in which you drive the county off your property with some help from neighbors, then declare war on the resident beaver population while the county gnashes its teeth at your front gate. Damn beavers, damming everything.

We also encountered a recently exploded meth lab while investigating a giant beaver dam on a different site. Clearly, the mammoth proportions of the dam indicate a positive correlation between beaver production and exposure to methamphetamines. Drugged-out rodents with giant teeth are fearsome creatures.

And then, there was the guy who didn't have a phone, or electricity, and who's fondly referred to by his neighbors as "that guy who's always spending time in one of our finest correctional facilities." To quote one acquaintance, "He's a real nice guy. I'm just surprised you found him. I thought he was still in jail." He was sitting in the driveway when we showed up after trying fruitlessly to reach him on his imaginary phone. He didn't seem overly surprised to see us, just a little taken aback that we hadn't called.

So, here's to friends, meth labs, and beavers. And an extra toast to whoever finds me Googling for porn and drugs after I post this. Sorry about that, buddy.

Off for a few days

Tomorrow, I take the ever-wonderful 3.5 hour bus ride from Oxford to Cambridge for one final hurrah with the lasses. They better come visit me in Seattle, although I'm sure our cider selection will disappoint.

They've prepped well for my arrival. To paraphrase from an email today: "We drank a *whole* bottle of port between us after formal hall on Tuesday. But not before going to the Castle for other drinks first. What a clever idea. A lot of it ended up on X's floor and clothes, it appears ;)"

I've been assured that this floor, upon which I will be sleeping, became doused in port as a result of drunken drink spillage, not because the port made a second appearance later in the evening. The floor is now a bit "salty," but they've promised it will be clean enough that I won't stick to it tomorrow night.

If I'm well enough to get on the return bus, aka not in bed nursing a three-day hangover, I'll talk to you Sunday evening. Until then, it came to my attention that The Onion posted an incredibly un-funny story about domestic violence. Sure, they parody everything, but this one was handled in poor taste (and the mental images it conjures are disgusting). Crossed a line? Discuss.

Heartbroken

I had to say goodbye -- again -- to my best friend Monday. Even though it's supposed to get easier, since theoretically each goodbye is one less to do, it doesn't. Instead, I drove home harboring an emptiness that still lingers in me as I sit here now, slouched on the couch, disinterested in anything that involves having to feel something. Every time I leave and hug her goodbye, it's like a piece of me is torn away. Sure, we still have email and occasional, well-scheduled phone calls, but it's just not the same.

My husband has pointed out that we don't see each other any less than we used to, which is an accurate and typical male assessment that is also completely irrelevant. It's not about seeing each other, at least not really. It's about being able to call her whenever I have a bad day, or a good day, or a stupid day that I just want to grumble about for awhile. It's about knowing that I could be there in a day's drive if she needed me, about all the times I had my keys in hand and was ready to drive six hours to cheer her up if things didn't improve by nightfall. It's about knowing I can be there for her like she's been there for me, instead of having to wait until both of our awake schedules overlap.

It's hard to explain it to anyone who hasn't had a friend that could just as easily be a sister. Our relationship is quirky and long-lasting. On the surface, people may not even understand why we're friends: we don't really like most of the same movies, or music. I suck at video games, and she's an ace. We drink different things, watch different things, do different things. But on that deeper, better level? All I can tell you is that I would rather watch a movie with her that I know I won't like than enjoy one on my own. Because somehow, watching it with her makes it worth doing and makes it more fun than I could ever imagine. She knows me like no one else in this world, in a different way than my parents or my husband, in a deeper way than I know myself sometimes. In a single conversation, she managed to put my long-distance relationship in perspective when I didn't think there was any point in trying. She makes me laugh, lets me cry, humors my occasional antisocial weirdness and accepts my complete inability to accel at anything involving coordination, like climbing stairs without falling on my face. There couldn't be another person on this earth who could make a better friend, and I just hope I do half as much for her as she for me. Anywhere in this country, be it Chicago or Florida or Maine or Washington, I would at least be able to call her. I can't, and it eats away at me even though I know it's temporary. I worry that I can't be the kind of best friend I should be when I'm not even able to pick her up on a bad day. She has a fantastic boyfriend and amazing support from her friends, but it kills me that I'm not there to share in everything that's happening. I miss her. I hate this. I know it will end sooner than I think and that we'll be back together again, but it doesn't make it any easier now. I just wish I could tell her how much she's meant to me over the years, how happy and proud I am for her now as she does such incredible things with her life, how painful it is for me to miss them. A best friend, a sister, a confidant -- there's not much more I could imagine finding in one person. So I'll get on this plane and swallow the ache in my throat again...but this emptiness? This missing piece? It's with her. Always.

Anywhere in this country, be it Chicago or Florida or Maine or Washington, I would at least be able to call her. I can't, and it eats away at me even though I know it's temporary. I worry that I can't be the kind of best friend I should be when I'm not even able to pick her up on a bad day. She has a fantastic boyfriend and amazing support from her friends, but it kills me that I'm not there to share in everything that's happening.

I miss her. I hate this. I know it will end sooner than I think and that we'll be back together again, but it doesn't make it any easier now. I just wish I could tell her how much she's meant to me over the years, how happy and proud I am for her now as she does such incredible things with her life, how painful it is for me to miss them. A best friend, a sister, a confidant -- there's not much more I could imagine finding in one person. So I'll get on this plane and swallow the ache in my throat again...but this emptiness? This missing piece? It's with her. Always.

Counting those blessings

(Freewrite here, so sorry if it's a bit long-winded.)

It’s growing colder here and the last leaves on the trees are finally turning brittle and drifting down to the ground. Thanksgiving is tomorrow, which, coincidentally, also marks the start of the final week of the term here.

The last 8 weeks have flown, possibly even faster than the time preceding our departure. I’ve lost track of the whens and whos; it’s become a blur of flash photos snapped in a dark room, frozen images of dwindling afternoons in libraries, of late-night port sessions with flatmates, of jarring shifts between highs and lows. This term precipitated more soul-searching than I ever thought possible. Sometimes, I feel like I’ve actually managed to step outside myself; I’m changing, and if I could only identify in what way, I’d know how to feel about it.

They say that women hit a quarter-life crisis sometimes, and that’s probably the case for me. I don’t really mind, although it does lead to more than its share of illogical panic attacks when you’re perched at the edge of your chair frantically typing a report only to realize that you don’t really know why you’re writing it.

The thankful list is extensive this year, and again, it’s all images. I wish I’d had a camera with me documenting every moment of the year, from dress fitting to scholarship interviews to that long carriage ride when we took nothing with us but our present selves. So, I’m thankful that I have a best friend who could cry on my shoulder as we walked out of that cramped dressing room together before the ceremony began. I’m thankful for the friends who remain close despite the miles from here to Seattle, Los Angeles, Berkeley, Stanford and Boston. I’m thankful for having the bravest, steadfast, compassionate husband I could have conjured up, the one who reminds me that I’ll have company on every wayward step of this journey I’m taking. I’m grateful beyond words for my quirky, irreverent, occasionally embarrassing and always loyal family. They above all made me what I am, and I can’t imagine being able to repay the debt.

I’m even thankful for graduate school, for the unexpected lessons it is teaching me about who I am and what matters enough to be worth scrapping and clawing for.

There’s a gorgeous lyric to a Bright Eyes song that I’ve quoted before, but it’s worth mentioning again…”I’m saying nothing in the past or future ever will feel like today.” Today may not always feel good, but it will always be different, unexpected, and beautiful in its raw, unfinished presentation. That’s worth celebrating, don’t you think?

When all of your tears dry...

This isn't going to be a great post, but sometimes I just need to let my music speak for me.

I've been listening to Carbon Leaf a lot lately; their new album, "Indian Summer," manages to contain songs that cover every emotion I've experienced this summer. Now, on the eve of my best friend's departure to Kansas, I just keep listening to this same song -- it seems like an appropriate sendoff:

"Changeless"

Call my friends to share some wine
To share some laughs, and last goodbyes
My photographs of these years
Will make me laugh through the tears

What are the odds, what are the odds
this ends and we don't meet again?
What are the odds, What are the odds
that I will miss your smile?

Take awhile! Take awhile! Take care and
Fly away and see the world
Take awhile! Take awhile! Take time and
If you need rest, I'll keep your nest
Changeless

Let fondness be our souvenir
To keep it warm, we'll keep it near
Otherwise with no heart to recall...
A memory's just a memory after all
I will not leave this pulse alone
Though it may take the long way home
I will not wait until the end
For my applause for you my friend

What are the odds, what are the odds
This ends and we don't meet again
What are the odds, what are the odds?
This ends and we won't meet again
What are the odds, What are the odds
That I have missed your smile?

Take awhile! Take awhile! Take care and
Fly away and see the world
Take awhile! Take awhile! Take time and
If you need rest, I'll keep your nest
Changeless

I know, of course, that I will see her again, many a time throughout our long lives. That's what appeals to me about this song: it's a determined pledge to maintain the integrity and intimacy of a friendship, despite all of the changes in store.

This isn't going to be easy, and the closer my own departure comes, the more goodbyes I have to say. I never realized how hollow those can make you feel, how much your chest aches when you give that last, awkward hug before turning away for awhile. You have to say goodbye to everything: your friends, your old haunts, your favorite view of Lake Union...So I cling to another song, playing it time and again in the car as I cruise slowly down the road:

You've come far, and though you're far from the end
You don't mind where you are, 'cause you know where you've been...
When all of your tears dry,
let your troubles roll by

I'm terrified and excited; a jumbled, incoherent storm of words; the flutter at the throat of a bird before it takes flight. Part of me wants so badly to let this pass me by, and the other half is pleading for the courage and faith to see it through...I want someone, anyone to take me by the hand and guide me through to the end, but I know I have to do this on my own...and I know CB and Kelli and everyone else will be there for me, but I'm still insecure enough to beg for reassurance...I need wisdom and faith, a faith I don't have right now and don't know how to retrieve.

Raise the roof, that I might see the stars
To gain wisdom, to see things for what they are
Please, I need proof

Dance till you fall
Love till you die
Shut your mouth
Raise the roof

Trapped in the snare with too much dreaming to bear
Fearful and frantic, hopeless and a romantic
Inspired but tired, I run this wide-open course
Like the sagging spirit of an older horse

Peel back this backdrop, like the lids from my eyes
Put you in plain view, let me visualize
Touch me again in my dreams till I feel
Touch me again till I wake and it's real

The wisest advice to me that I didn't reach
Was to lock up the heart, but keep the key within reach
Touch me again in my dreams till I feel
Touch me again till I wake and it's real

Dance till you fall
Love till you die
Shut your mouth
Raise the roof

The enormity of it overwhelms me to the point where I feel consumed by my own future. I know it's going to be better in the end, but oh how I wish I could slow down just long enough to gauge where I am before I try to keep going. Some days, everything feels like it's at the right pace; today, as the inevitability of the big move grows clear, I feel like I'm flying too fast to breathe.

Too much to do, too much to see
Pictures to take, people to meet
When there's so much space in between
It overwhelms me

Scene after scene passes by my life
The window's a wound, the road is a knife
The irony, ask me, "Where have you been?"
I don't know, I don't know
because I don't know where to begin

I warned you: it wasn't going to be a great post. I'll try to be a little more articulate tomorrow, but for now I just want to sit and figure out where, exactly, I should begin in this new part of my life.

Missing the womb

Back in my undergraduate days at Seattle U's Honors College, Becca and I knew a neurotic friend who had difficulty confronting its life-draining demands. He unsuccessfully tried managing his problem with copious quantities of pot, beat poetry, vodka and spray paint (mostly of an atomic bomb exploding next to a giant phallus on his dorm room walls...pity the summer cleaning crew...). Then, he discovered the one trick that worked: a return to the womb.

The womb, in this case, consisted of one's dorm room bed: insert self deep within its covers, pull blankets over head, and think calm, blank thoughts while the afternoon ticks away slowly.

We laughed about it at first, but soon both of us were unable to resist its alluring, white-noise call...and the Honors Womb became a fixture in many a dorm. What this says about the mental state of honors students, I prefer not to ask.

Today, I find myself longing to return to the womb again. My tortoise is gone, my best friend is moving to Kansas, and I've managed to accomplish just shy of nothing in my summer grad school prep. Seriously, this is ridiculous. I've never been so stressed out. I went to the dentist a week ago to find out why I had a new gap in between my molars. He looked up from the chair and asked, "Have you been under a lot of stress lately? You've managed to clench your jaws hard enough to work your teeth out of alignment."

Just remember that when you see me three or four years from now, wandering the streets with my second set of braces ('cause I'm sure not getting them in England!). I'm the girl who managed to clench my teeth into a whole new position. Somehow, I find this entirely amusing, which is probably appropriate for a frantic grad student.

Seriously, the womb sounds pretty good right now. Anybody have a spare mattress?

Back in the atmosphere

Just got back last night from a trip down to Eugene to bid adieu to my best bud, Kelli. Have I mentioned how much I hate saying goodbye to people? It's a punch to the gut that no one should have to experience...She's off to Kansas, and I'm off to Cambridge -- so begins a long series of conversations via AIM and e-mail. I don't know if any other farewells will be more difficult: Bryan and I will see each other a few times per month, and I know my family will be able to see me at least twice per year...but this is my best friend, my sister and my confidante, the one who's always stood by me, even when I've done some ridiculously stupid things. I can't imagine being so far from her. Maybe that's why I didn't want to let go when we hugged in the driveway, holding back tears and trying not to let our voices crack too much. I know it will be okay; right now it's anything but.

It was a long drive back to Seattle.

Whining and dining

The Dining:

The wine flowed, the food sizzled, and the conversation was...well, a fairly typical conversation in our household. Actually, our dinner party was a success, judging by the number of empty bottles in our kitchen and by the conspicuous absence of cheese and chocolate products from their wrappers. Somehow, we managed to move the conversation from general raves about the house to a brief discussion of animal rights to a drawn-out, excrutiatingly detailed dissection of a recent King County bestiality case, to bashing Seattle's transit plans -- and we even threw in some mid-20s career reflections for good measure!

Ndugu marked the occasion by straddling his log to reach the outstretched hands of visitors, then subsequently flipping himself over.

It makes me wish I'd had the space and friends to throw dinner parties earlier, perhaps when we weren't imminently departing for England. Nonetheless, I've spent the day with elevated hopes, thinking that I'll be in touch with everyone long after the UK culture shock fades. I can't wait to move back to Seattle someday, where I will find a house of my own and hold more dinner parties for the incredible cadre I've met since college started. By then, I will also have taught Ndugu to wash dishes for us, thereby eliminating the massive cleanup operation we have to start this evening. It's times like these I wish I could levitate furniture back into their rightful places. I also wish I could miraculously make the compost take itself out, so it could understand how much it hurts to be attacked by small, psychotic pests that spring from the compost bin like pop-up book characters. Except pop-ups don't have microscopic fangs capable of inflicting quater-size wounds.

The Whining
*Warning: this is NOT for the eyes of blood relatives. Also, no one may speak of it to my blood relatives, or discuss it with anyone who knows them. EVER.*

I'm having a David Sedaris moment.

There comes a time in every person's life when you realize that your family is crazy, and when all the illusions of normalcy crash down around your ears (if any remain by the time you hit your 20s).

That moment arrived recently, when two members of my immediate family joined the ranks of the tattooed. This may not sound like a big deal, but keep in mind that I only have three people in my immediate family. (Can you feel the outrage seething through the italics?) Never mind that it's completely normal for everyone to have tattoos these days, from the checkout clerk to the pastor of my local church. That doesn't mean it's okay for formerly sane relatives to become part of the masses.

I instantly regressed to my teenage years and fought an urge to hunch my shoulders while snarling, "Don't even talk to me!" I mean, the tattoos were my form of rebellion, my personal affirmation of identity, and my freaking idea in the freaking first place! Now I find out that I'm no longer the odd person out -- worse still, I think I may be the unwitting instigator of all this. Imagine the hororr you might experience if you were confronted by your own parents, grandparents and cousins as they beamed and pointed at their new ink jobs. Good god of all things holy, what natural order has been perverted here??

Quickly, I tried to envision a new way to stand out from the crowd. I realized that only three options remain to me: piercing (too difficult), branding (too painful) and scarification (who the hell even contemplates cutting their skin into artsy patterns?). I could always shave my head or dye it fuschia, but I don't think the fine upstanding elders at the Cambridge foundation would appreciate my reinvented self.

The worst part of it is that the family tattoos actually look cool. Better than mine, even; one of mine is incredibly simple and the other self-designed, and I possess all the design skill of an orangutan. The teenager in me is choking on her teeth, trying not to scream, "And did you have to make them better, too? There is no justice in this world -- it sucks." I can feel my posture mutating into a slouch as I internally insist, "I don't care. I just don't, okay?" But...crap. They look amazing. Maybe my self-created epiphany at 16 was correct: the world really is an unjust pit, ringed by oblivious relatives with gorgeous tattoos.

Oh yeah, one other thing. The two family members have seen the same artist for their work. In a moment of humor I will never appreciate, he designated himself our family tattoo artist.

There's something only my family could attain: a tattoo guru of our very own.

I think I'm going to get the rest of my work done in London.

Last supper

So, I've spent the day cleaning the house in anticipation of our dinner party tomorrow, when 10 or 11 friends will descend on Wallingford for wine, cheese and sopa seca. All of this seemed like a good idea until I purchased the ingredients and realized I had to dice six tons of bell peppers. What the hell was I thinking??

I hope no one is expecting spectacular, five-star service. If we're lucky, I'll drag the spare chairs in from the yard so people won't have to perch on the couch and the Incredibly Ugly, Barely Functional Ames Chair. I might even manage to get the giant box of stemware down from the kitchen's top shelf without raining a hail of glass fragments into the bodies of any onlookers.

Actually, I'm looking forward to it -- I've never really entertained on a large scale before, so hopefully this will be fun. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that everyone gets along and that I actually manage to triple the recipe without overdoing any ingredients or omitting anything crucial...For more reasons than one, it's probably best that my first dinner party will likely be my last in this country.

The Girl's Guide to Debauchery

Here's the post-best friend getaway report, straight from the now-sober fingers of a co-conspirator.

Kelli (my maid of honor) and I took a much-needed break last weekend by escaping to the Oregon coast. We'd planned three and a half days in Seaside, but one look at the stripmalls and hotels convinced us to make a beeline for Cannon Beach. Our room at a not-to-be-named hotel? The size of a closet, complete with large, noisy ceiling fan and window looking onto the hallway. After making 15 minutes of frantic phone calls in Kelli's car (at 9:30 pm - very late for beach towns), we managed to find one room left at a Cannon Beach inn. We limped down the coast, exhausted and starving, but relieved that we wouldn't have to spend the night in our cars on the shoulder of Highway 101.

Upon arrival, it was clear we made the right choice. Our ginormous inn had a pool, a jacuzzi big enough for a small hippo, a massage parlour, beachfront property...the list goes on, but the best part is that we didn't have to sell our belongings to stay there.

We spend the weekend waking up very, very late; cruising into town for fat-saturated breakfasts and window shopping; strolling miles of soft, sandy beaches and scoping out tidepools; eating ridiculously large dinners, followed by decadent desserts; and staying up late with movies, drinks, and long conversations. I discovered that I can still hold my own in small-town bars. We both discovered that overcast days and fair, Irish skin do not mix well. I may pop a seam in my wedding dress, but it was worth every damn bite of that chocolate souffle.

In case I haven't mentioned it, Kelli is the kind of friend every girl dreams of meeting. I've never been good at making friends, let alone best friends, but it all comes easily with her. We understand each other in an uncanny and occasionally frightening way; our lives tend to run on parallel tracks and always have. Moving away from her is causing me more heartache than anything else at this point, even though I know we'll be commiserating over e-mail and online telephones. Instead of focusing on that, I'm trying to be grateful for the countless memories and misadventures we've had, and to look forward to years more when we both come back to the Pacific Northwest. Sometimes, you meet people and you know your souls have met in the past, somewhere or somewhen. I shouldn't be so upset, because these are the people you never lose. I just have to have faith in that connection and in an old, irreplaceable friendship.

In the middle

It's stream of consciousness time, when the rules of grammar get to fly out the window:
So, my best friend comes up to visit her family this weekend, and I'm sitting on their living room couch while we eat dinner, and I realize this may be the last trip to her house for awhile...which we both decide is survivable before returning to our food, but then I get behind the wheel of my car and I'm driving home in the darkening summer evening while the foothills disappear beneath a slate blue blanket of thunderheads and I realize that it's not okay and I'm not okay and I don't feel like trying to be okay right now...so I make it through the front door and up the stairs to my room where I curl up like a snail on my bed and sob into my fiancee's left shoulder.

These moments sabotage me; I never know when they will creep past the borders of consciousness, but nothing is safe from triggering an episode. The right song, a change in the weather, or a poignant poem could kick a hole through my carefully erected wall, and quite a bit of flotsam has gathered behind it.

Deep down, I realize that all of us will adapt: my friend and I will thrive via IM, email and internet phones; my fiancee and I will cherish every one of our visits, and we'll be too busy to pine away during the interim; my family will adapt after awhile, and the months between trips home will fly. Still, I'm incredibly nervous looking at it now, looming before me in one giant block instead of the series of smaller hurdles it actually is. I worry about making friends all over again, about keeping the ones I have (what if they find newer, closer, better friends?? shrieks the insecure voice in my head), and about making sure my relationships with the people I love remain the same. I realize that the distance will require flexibility, but I would be devastated if new distances grew between my fiancee and I, or between my family and I, and so on. Again, I am fully aware that this will not happen if the parties involved do not want it to; however, knowing and accepting are two different things. The main reason why I fear change is because I have ridiculously strong insecurities about my relationships with people; I view major change as a force with the potential to jeopardize those connections, so I fear it instead of seeing the good it could create (e.g., giving my friends a reason to visit England, or making me a better email correspondent).

I'm also worried that I'll turn back into the person I was a few years ago: self-contained and isolated, despite the extroverted behavior -- a loner yearning for friends yet unable to drop her defenses for any who came along. I'd hate to isolate myself in grad school, but oh how I loathe getting to know new people. I always feel uncomfortable introducing myself and going through nine circles of hell trying to be comfortable enough to be me around strangers. Unfortunately, this fear perpetuates itself: I avoid getting to know people, then make no friends, thereby convincing me that trying to make friends is pointless...Again, I know this is in my control, but old habits die hard, and I always curl into myself when things get rough. Walls are easier to build than bridges.

Carp, carp, carp. That's all I do on here lately, and I apologize. This has turned into a pseudo-journal for me, so it's a forum for airing my daily angst. I'll try to revive the political commentary and humor, really I will! It's frustrating: whenever I'm in the middle of a huge transition, it always feels insurmountable. As soon as I step out from the middle of it, I realize how truly insignificant the whole process is -- but that never changes how I feel when the next one arrives. Ah, life in your 20s. Can I turn 30 yet? :)

Sunny in Seattle!

It is supposed to hit 80 degrees today, and I couldn't be happier. Naturally, my shoulders have already burned in that great Irish American heritage way...I have to fry at least twice before I actually tan...go figure. Somehow, I doubt my dermatologists will be sympathetic 30 years down the line - but what can I do when I sunburn after driving my car for an hour??

I've managed to get together with several friends lately, and it has been fantastic catching up with everyone. Regardless of how busy my life is, I've tried really hard since the Great Thyroid Incident of 2004 to maintain some semblance of a social life. It may not be much, but a weekly lunch or after-work hangout session means the world to me, and it keeps me much saner than spending all afternoon with the to-do list. The extent to which I will miss my friends is really starting to sink in: you all have to come visit me -- I'll have free floor space! :)

Okay, back to running around in six directions. Okay, two, actually. I have to go find a necklace for my wedding day since it is coming up in four horrendously brief weeks. Gaaaah!