Not a Bad Start

 Over the course of four decades, I've read a lot of books, and in so doing, have come across (and retained) a lot of interesting information and phrases. Pretty much all of them very old-timey or British in origin, and I've got a  weird-ass habit of dropping a lot of them into my everyday conversation, much to the amusement and sometimes bewilderment of my friends and colleagues. 

One of my favorite expressions is, "Be careful what you do in the New Year, because that's what you'll do all year." It's a silly superstition, for sure; also, rather quaint. Hell if I can remember where I picked this up from, or even if it's a legit superstition (as opposed to something some fiction writer made up, all rando and willy-nilly like.) However, I've used this expression for a good long while now, and you know, it must have taken root, because last night, when conversing with my friend Brian about my plans for the New Year (spoiler alert: I Stayed The Fuck At Home), he chuckled and said, "Well, what you do in the New Year is what you'll do all year." 

Huh. What do you know? People actually listen to me sometime. 

Anyway, I do subscribe to this superstition, even if only because it encourages deliberate and mindful choices about how I spend my time and my energy. And this rather bodes well for the year ahead. I spent my New Year in the following lovely ways: 

• Chatting with friends and loved ones on the phone and Facebook and Google Hangouts and Skype, trying to consciously cultivate a warm and loving support network
• Gazing out at the spookily foggy weather

• Making a delicious breakfast casserole and sharing some with my downstairs neighbor (thanks again, Brandi, from saving me from eating all of it! PS--the leftovers maybe taste even better, especially with hot sauce and a dollop of sour cream) 

 

• Brainstorming ideas to further grow my eldest sister's YouTube channel
• Cuddling with my cats
• Spending some time pondering both the past year and the year upcoming with a tarot spread

• And otherwise just generally enjoying a cozy, quiet day in my home. The pandemic continues on, and I know it will be many more months before enough of us are vaccinated to really resume something akin to life like it was in The Before Times. But the turning of the year somehow kicked me into a place of hope. I feel like once we are over the entirely predictable winter surge, we'll be in a better place and can really move forward. The end is far, far away, but it is in sight. 
• So, the most important things that I did today, that I will hopefully do all year? I behaved responsibly, and I cultivated hope, and I remained safe. Stay strong, folks, and cultivate hope. That's what will help us through this. 

Are You There, 2020? It's Me, Mel

In the last hours of 2019, I had a few friends over to my place for drinks before we went forth to conquer Bloomington on New Year's Eve. (How adult-y is that? A cocktail party! I even set out crudites in my grandmother's monkeywood dip bowl.) It was a lovely little gathering, well-oiled with my signature gimlets and jovial conversation. At some point we fell into the habit of bellowing "2019!!!!!" anytime we brought up unpleasant things that happened in the year 2019. And then, of course, as the clock inched closer to midnight, we would occasionally bellow hopefully, 2020!

Well. Fast-forward to 3.5 weeks later...and I am still waiting for 2020 to show up. You see, I am now considering January a "soft opening" for 2020. Dear readers, this month has kicked my ass. What I thought was an ornery little cold quickly devolved into strep pneumonia. What even is that? And how freakin' extra can you get?

To make a short, miserable story even shorter: I spent far more time than I would like laying on my couch, too dizzy and achey and feverish and exhausted to do more than force myself to chug fluids and binge-watch The Crown. It's only been in the last week that I've really started to get on the mend. It's only been in the last few days that I've really started to have honest-to-god energy. It's only been, like, oh, tonight that I started pondering what I want to do with the rest of 2020.

Mind and Body Shit
-I've got a Y membership, and a body that is very much aware of the fact that it is almost 40 years old. You can fill in the blanks.
-Starting, and sticking with, a habit tracker and health log: I'm very interested to see what the correlations are between my lifestyle and my physical body--i.e., how much sleep I get, what I'm eating, how much I'm moving, and how I am feeling.

Work Shit
-This year, I'm due to be re-certified as a librarian here in Indiana. In order to do that, I've got to prove that I've acquired XXX amount of hours of professional development. In a typical case of the cobbler's children never being shod, or something, I've been so wrapped up in other parts of my job that I've neglected this. And so now I've got 11 months left to get my shit together and re-librarian myself.
-Update my resume on LinkedIn. *Disclaimer: I have no specific reason for doing so, other than I think it's a good idea to always have an updated resume.

Fun, Creative, Hobby Shit
-I'd like to do some work with hand-lettering, which is, frankly, all the rage in the Plannerverse. I've got pretty decent handwriting, so I'd like to see what I can do to jazz things up and branch out even more.
-Create a scrapbook of my Bucketlist Trip to Australia or participate in NaNoWriMo.
-Blog at least 3 times per month

Adulting Shit
-Join AAA
-Get my car detailed
-Possibly pay off one of my private student loans
-Reconnect with my Nationwide Retirement account
-Meal plan and ook more

Indiana and Travel Shit
-Plan and have a lovely 40th birthday weekend in Cincinnati with my nearest and dearest
-Try one new restaurant a month here in Bloomington
-Visit my sisters at Thanksgiving (or have them visit me)
-Explore at least 5 new things or events in Indiana

Honestly, in typical overachieving Indygrrl fashion, I've got lots of other hopes and goals and plans and dreams and ideas. These are just the highlights of what I hope to accomplish, if I don't get stricken with Black Plague or Swine Flu or strep-dropsy or whatever the latest thing is. Hope springs eternal, even if my energy and health do not.

2020!

Nothing Gold Can Stay...But It Can Return

Nothing gold can stay...




This has been a lesson that I have learned (or at least been reminded of), over and over, in the last eight years of my life. Any sense of contentment, of amusement, of relief, of pleasure, of simple joy in my home and work and friends, is accompanied by a shadow of knowledge that restlessness, disillusionment, anxiety, frustration, and abandonment (whether real or perceived) will also have their day. In the face of illness and old age and death and our own human frailties, the work and sacrifices and laughter and hopes will wither on the vine and seem trivial.

What if our hard work ends in despair? 
What if the road won't take me there?
Oh, I wish for once, we could stay gold.
What if to love and be loved's not enough?
What if I fall and can't bear to get up?
Oh I wish for once, we could stay gold.

This song, by First Aid Kit, is one that I've found immense comfort in over the years. These words remind me to keep a sense of balance and proportion. I've been given so much privilege in my lifethat even the days and weeks and months of sharp disappointments and worries do seem to be tempered by many good days, and weeks, and months. "Ebbs and flows," as my Middle Sister so often reminds me, and so it is in my life.

Thus far, it's been a rather golden kind of year--definitely since compared with last year, which, looking back now, seems layered in a thick coating of the ashes of many hopes, many plans, many castles in the air which came tumbling down. And so I've been relishing this golden yeara..because nothing gold can stay...

To this end, I threw a birthday party for myself at the end of May, as I leveled up to Adulting Level 38. Normally I'm not big on my birthday--I'm all about others' birthdays, but for me, I always worried that it would seem egotisitcal of me to throw a party and say "Hey everyone! Let's celebrate me!"

But this year, I made an exception. And on a golden evening in late May, I opened my home to a goodly number of people. It's been a long time since I've thrown a party of any significance--and as it turns out, while my little Haggery Home feels spacious for one feme sole, when you cram 20 people into a 2 bedroom flat, things can get cozy! But most folks stayed to the very end, and honestly, I don't even care if they didn't come to celebrate with me. They were there, laughing and having a good time, and that makes my heart happy. It's a golden memory that I will keep with me so long as my memory endures.

One of my sisters flew up from Florida. One of my oldest friends from grad school drove down to Chicago with her dog for the weekend. It was a golden night, with love and laughter and silly toasts and heartfelt words (and Cards Against Humanity, too.)

But there is only forward, no other way
Tomorrow was your hope at the end of the day
And gold turns grey...

All so very true, but if I can bathe in the glow of the gold as it is here, I will count this as worth the grey.

Being Green

Today at work, when I was buried ass to eyeballs in files and notes and paperwork (with nary a book in sight), a random realization came to me: fourteen years ago today, I came to Bloomington, Indiana for the first time as an adult.

That's a rather silly sort of anniversary, isn't it? 14 years. Not that it's a decade or 25 years or anything like that; not it's not that I moved to Bloomington just then; not even that it was my first time in Bloomington. But for whatever reason, this happy little anniversary stands out to me.

It was a whirlwind trip, that trip--I flew in early on a Friday morning, giddy from a lack of sleep, and was back in Florida by Sunday night. But oh, I packed so much into those few days--I explored, I secured housing for myself, I wished graduating students well as they posed with their parents for pictures in front of the Sample Gates, I met a fellow that I would soon fall madly in love with; I listened to Irish music at a co-op cafe, I got re-acquainted with my uncle and his girlfriend; I met up with some Internet acquaintances for an early-evening picnic in an enchanting park, and together we tortured a Peep and a Peter Pan doll.

And I saw spring. A real, proper spring, with green everywhere. Sure, I knew green--the dusky, darker green of the palms and pines and scrubby brush of Florida. But this was a green that I had never encountered...a vivid, lush, almost painfully bright green. It was a green that seemed to flaunt itself, like it knew that it was in the rudest of health, and it was boasting of it. Oh, it was green.

But nothing was as green as I was.

Fourteen years later...My uncle's girlfriend is now my aunt. Those students that I wished well are now 14 years older, and while I never learned their names or even the first thing about them, other than they had proud parents, I still think of them and hope their parents are still proud, and that they remember their university years with joy. The fellow that I met and fell madly in love with...well, ours is a goofy sort of story, but we are still characters in each other's tale. The little co-op cafe is no more, and most of the folks I met for the picnic have moved on to different places, different partners. That enchanting park is still there, is a place I drive past all the time, is a place I still love to go.
And me? What of me?

I wanted different things then-- my vision was a bit more limited, I think. I wanted to do well in grad school, make good grades; marriage and family and career and everything Beyond Grad School were just abstracts. Research papers and projects and stultifying reading assignments loomed large, and I don't think I saw much past that. If the me of fourteen years ago met the me of now, I think we would--at best--cordially dislike each other. The battles that mattered to me at 24, I quite often can't be bothered to give a damn about at 37. Weirdly, I want more from life and expect more from myself now than I did fourteen years ago, but I'm a happier person, all the same.

Who's to say that happiness will last? Green springs swell with life and hope...and give way to fruit and death and fallow times, and god knows I've seen plenty of those in the fourteen years that have lapsed. There will be more fruitless and fallow times ahead in my life--hell, I just exited one--and perhaps in another fourteen years, I will look back on this green-and-gold spring evening and shake my head over who I am now.

"Get out of your own head," Older Indy Grrl might say, "Get off your ass and sit outside in this gentle twilight you're writing about and see the spring beauty while you can."

And yet here I am, still typing.

Maybe I'm not so different than I was, after all.

But I'm kind of curious about what happened to that Peter Pan doll.

My Second Indianaversary

Two years.

2 years.

Two. 2. Two. 2.

Two years ago, I moved home.

How has it been two years? The more I repeat those words, the less sense they make, and the less profundity they have. They are just words that don't at all encompass the fact that somehow, so much time has passed since I made that journey away across deserts and prairies and through fields and forests, from California to Indiana.

So much of my life is completely different.

The magic and wonder that came with, "Oh my god, I really did make it back home" have worn off, of course. Just like with a new relationship, there's no way that bliss could sustain itself. Not when things like perpetual 'flu, an incredibly fucked-up election, an unstable living situation with an unpleasant person, and just all the quotidian things that come with living life, are all crowding in. So yes, in that sense, the euphoria has worn off. But my happiness, my contentment, my sense of rightness, those have not faded in these two years, only grown ever more lush, like a never-ending Indiana June.

Lots of people say, "You can't outrun your problems. Run away, move to a new place, you'll still be you.You won't be any happier. New city, same you."

Well...yes, and no.

I did move to a new place, start a new life. And I was still me. I still had some of my problems; I was still the same person that created and/or attracted and/or permitted those problems. But I was still--and am still--happier. Because, as it turns out, there were some problems that I could leave behind. My biggest problems were where I was living (it felt completely alien and wrong for me); my marriage (it was an absolute failure); and my job (I had outgrown it.) So, I moved to a place that I loved, that felt right; I ended my marriage; and I took a new job, at a different organization, doing something very different. I was the same person, but I liked my life so much more. Even during this last year, which was simply a nightmare year, I still liked my life.

2 years in, and I am still me. Still liking my life, and still aware of my flaws, my choices, my habits, my thought processes, my insecurities, all of which are still a part of me, and still have the potential to bring me unhappiness. All I can do, every day, is try embrace this new chance at life that I've been given, to try to fall more in love with my lovely, backward state, to simultaneously improve my faults and yet accept that "All we can be is who we are...failures and all."

I'm still me. I'm home. And I'm happy.

2018, So Far...

2018! Hello, how are you? Nice to meet you. Are you anything like 2017? What's that? You say you bear no resemblance to that foul number?!? Well, that's just swell. I reckon we will get along just fine.

(I can dream, can't I?) 

Last weekend, I remarked to a friend that 2017 was just a plain damned bad year for us. There was death--both from old age and suicide. There was illness. People got hit by cars. There were more disappointments than can be counted, both professional and personal. There were stressful life situations, and shitty people. In fact, 2017 sucked so bad that it wasn't content to suck only in 2017--it started sucking in 2016, with the election!

People talk about how they have a theme, or a word, to define their year. Well, for me, the word for me in 2017 was endure.

For months, I was ready for the end of 2017. I know, I know. We can start over again every morning, and we don't have to wait for a new year. But there is something beautiful and pristine about January 1st. It's like a mini life-reset button. And so, when the end of 2017 rolled around, my friends and I paused in our game of Cards Against Humanity, raised our glasses of shitty champagne, said "Suck a nut!" to 2017, and metaphorically ran straight into the welcoming arms of the new year. 

There's a lot that I'm looking forward to in this new year. Perhaps the most pleasing thing is that, in less than a month, I'll be moving into my own place. This is the culmination of the various upheavals and uncertainties I've been encountering in my life over the last four years--the divorce, the various moves, the living situations that I should have gotten out of my system when I was a college-aged nitwit, not a woman nearing middle age. My existence has felt so unsettled, so unpredictable, for so long, and I'm beyond ready to just dig in some roots, settle in, and live. Not extravagantly, or dangerously, or promiscuously. Just live my life, quietly and usefully, with my work and my hobbies and my modest pursuits, entertaining my friends, exploring my state, trying to mentally and emotionally recover from...so much. There has been so much that I haven't been able to know or count on, for so long. And perhaps that won't change. But I'd just like to take a year or two to be in my own home, experiencing my own life on my own terms, before having to strategize about what comes next. I've been worried about What Comes Next for so long, that I haven't been able to focus on What's Happening Now as much as I would like.

So here's what's happening now: I am in my warm bed, with a cat sitting next to me, his purr loud and happy. There's a winter storm brewing outside, and as usual, a thousand thoughts brewing in my head. My bunion is aching and I'm getting sleepy and I'm feeling safer and happier than I've felt in a long time, and I am happy with this moment of my life--which is, really, the only moment I have. I'm making plans and preparations for many future happy moments, but for now, I'll take this moment of happy...and be excited for more moments of happy to come.   

...Ready for it

Today, I've been a bit confused.

The calendar says it's Halloween. So too do the dishes of candy and chocolates, scattered about work, and all of the wee buggers, trotting about in their various costumes. But when I step outside, what I think is, "MERRY CHRISTMAS!"

As much as I love this place, I can't deny the fact that most of my life has been spent in warm climates. 19 years in Florida, most Halloweens being gross and humid. 9 years in California, most Halloweens being toasty and "oh it's a dry heat" and still feeling like hell. So when I step outside on Halloween morn, and see that my windshield is coated in a layer of ice, and realize that my long wool coat might not be enough to withstand the morning's chill...I'm a little con-fuddled. My body, my personal history, they tell me it's Christmas, even though my life now tells me, "Happy Halloweenie!"

(It's also worth mentioning that we are forecasted to get a wintry mix of precipitation late tonight. YAAAAAAAAAS.)

What I've noticed is that October tends to be a pretty busy time for me--even without the job and two side-hustles I've got going on right now. I'd love to say that I read a dozen books and cooked some amazing meals and crafted some lovely creations and so on, but that's just not the case. I do my work--buying media (we are at the end of the spending cycle), teaching my class, doing a bit of caregiving for my former boss. I socialize with my aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Indiana and their son, and a few other friends. I pursue some fall adventures, like watching scary movies and frolicking in a picked-over orchard. I scold the cats and watch "The West Wing" and think about simpler presidencies, and I try to enjoy the fall as it creeps in.

I attend an utterly magical play with my D'uncle, and remember the line, "It's supposed to hurt...that's how you know it meant something."

I laugh with my friends, and try to focus on the day at hand, and not look back too much on past Octobers, or worry too much about Octobers ahead. I love the thought of homes, cozy and welcoming in the darkening nights; I turn my collar up and face the cold. Some folks believe that Halloween is the witch's New Year, and while I haven't been witchy-poo enough in a long time to adhere to that, a very big part of me hopes that this Halloween is a new year, and that the various shit--physical sickness, political insanity, personal betrayals and disappointments--that have sprung up since last October are now drawing to their close. We will see.

But I gotta admit...I'm ready for it.

On Being Alive

This might be my favorite time of the year,  these early days of autumn. The mornings and evenings are cool--a couple of times, now, they've even been chilly--but days are still warm. And yet...the late afternoon sunlight is a particularly brilliant yet gentle golden, as though it's apologizing for the harsh summer months and trying to encourage us to soak up what little warmth remains before winter sets in. The crickets still chirp at night; not the loud clamor of high summer, and rather fewer of them, but they are still their, making their noises quietly and persistently as though saying, "We will continue our song until the bitter end."

It's a beautiful early fall evening right now, and I am reminded of a fall evening from my very early years. It must be one of my very first memories--I was three, or perhaps four. We were still living in Ohio. My mom was getting me ready for bed, and insisting I wear an undershirt under my nightgown because the nights were getting cooler. I remember looking over her shoulder at the open window in my bedroom, seeing the dark night beyond my cozy little world, feeling the chill night air, knowing she was right.

It's a beautiful fall evening right now, and for me at least, it is a beautiful day to be alive. And oh, how rotten I feel, thinking that. At least 59 people are no longer here to enjoy life on this peaceful evening. Their lives ended yesterday, their peace shattered. I wish that I could believe that they have never-ending peace, now, but I don't have any certainty of that. I know that we who are left have even less peace and security than we had before (and really, those were and are only illusions), and I know that many of us sit in our homes, and look out our open windows into the chilly autumn evening, and know that it's a dark night that lies beyond our cozy little world. And not all of us have the privilege of a cozy little world.

I'm sad, I'm distressed, I'm exhausted. I imagine most of us are--and probably for a lot longer than just the last 24 hours. I don't know what to do; I only know that I can close my eyes against this gentle autumn night and wake tomorrow and rise and meet the day with a desire to act with courage and a strong moral compass and compassion. Maybe that's all I can do. Maybe that's all any of us can do. Or maybe that that is the bare frickin minimum.

May we all retire to our beds tonight, safe and loved. May we all wake tomorrow to wrest whatever beauty we can from this chaotic world. May we all survive to see another beautiful autumn evening tomorrow. And may we rest our heads tomorrow night knowing we did all we personally could to set this world to rights.

There are many, many things that I disliked about my California exile. One of the more ironic things (given my line of work) that plagued my time there was the fact that I was never able to get a good book club going. What makes a good book club? Good books, good wine, good snacks...and good people who, you know, actually read the book. I eventually got fed up with the women who turned up and said sheepishly, "I didn't get a chance to read the book this month..."

A couple of months back, when I was working the Reference Desk, I helped a woman find a book. She mentioned that it was for her book club.

"Oooh, where's your book club?"

An impish smile tugged at her lips. "It's just me and my friends." She paused, lowered her voice. "We call it Read The Book Or Get The Fuck Out."

I've found my people.

Last Wednesday, on a weirdly stormy evening, I went to C3, a pretentious neighborhood (not my neighborhood) bar for the first book group meeting of the year. Other than the woman who originally told me about their group, I hadn't met any of the other members. Yet within a few minutes of meeting these women, I plunged into a fantastic conversation about books. Is there anything better than talking about books? 

Eventually, we got around to talking a little about the books--The Glass Castle and Echo--one of which we each had to read. Here's the funniest part about the whole evening--we probably spent 5, 10 minutes, tops, talking about those specific books. And then we went back to talking about other books. But hey, we all read the books we were supposed to. None of us had to get the fuck out. 

The evening was a long one, filled with lots of conversation. I talked--I'm good at that--but I also spent a lot of time listening and observing these women. We ranged in age, from 34 to 44. All of these lovely ladies sported sparkling diamond rings on their wedding ring finger. Most of them spoke of children. All of them spoke pretty lovingly about their husbands, their shared lives and interests. 

What is that? Speaking to these women, I felt like I was catching a glimpse of some sort of weird, parallel universe. Like I was this close to being one of these women, but for some quirk, some twist of timing and fate, I missed the boat that was sailing towards Normal Life Isle.

Do I miss that sort of life? Sometimes I do. That night, I did.

I read to hear stories about other people, to gain insights, to re-learn empathy, to travel outside my own head, to ponder different possibilities. And that night last week--and many nights in the future, I hope--I didn't need the books to ponder different possibilities. Those lovely ladies gave me a glimpse into another world. I'm not sure I want that world, but I'm not turning away from it just yet, either. And I'm definitely not going to get the fuck out. 

New Year, New...Meh.

I remember, when I was a little girl, a time or two my grandparents had a get-together on New Year's Eve. It was just them, and a couple of neighbor couples, and snacks and boozy drinks and Trivial Pursuit, and that annoying, awkward little girl staying up 'way past her bedtime and annoying the grown-ups. These grown-ups were in their seventies, and no doubt had seen many, many old years die and new years born. I wonder now if they felt a thrill, a charge, a sense of relief of a bad year ending, or a sense of joy of a new year starting? Did they make plans and resolutions or goals? Or had they simply been around the block enough times that it didn't matter?

Guess I haven't hit that point yet.

On December 31, five friends came to my home and together, we watched a epic historical Chinese war film, and played games, and ate food, and drank champagne, and talked about nothing too major. Some of us had endured a pretty rough year, and at that late point in the game, there was no point in re-hashing old, painful ground. Together, we said good-bye to 2016, and helped 2017 be born. Whether we all had made goals and resolutions, I don't know. We didn't really speak of it, at least not too seriously. Perhaps most of us hadn't made any, or perhaps none of us felt comfortable enough yet to reveal those things to each other.

I know that I've been trying to ponder my goals and resolutions for a while now. There's so much in my life that will eventually need changing, and I really don't know where to start--particularly since I don't know quite what I want to change into. Professional ambitions, geographical desires, romantic interests; I am at sea when it comes to those. I simply don't know what I want. I'm just not there yet. And who knows? Maybe I'm not supposed to be, yet. Lord knows there are other things I need to be tending to. So while I don't have anything too earth-shattering planned out, I know what I need to tend to: I've got to get my health improved. I've got to get a place of my own. I've got to continue to spend time at the job that gave me my escape. I want to continue exploring my beloved state, ideally with the friends I am trying to bond with. And that's enough to be getting on with, at least for now. I suppose, in other words, now that I'm settled into my state, it's time to start reversing the damage I've done to myself over the last decade. And once I'm well on that path, I can start tackling the bigger stuff--start trying to find answers to the questions I'm not yet ready to ask.

In the Heart of the Winter, This Night is Not The End

"In the heart of the winter, you can see through the trees, 

and the frozen ground waiting, is the feel of your dreams. 

Life used to be simple, the world used to be sane

There's something that's missing, I want it put back again."

A year ago...

...Was the second year anniversary of my mother's death...

...I filed for divorce...

...I attended my work holiday dinner with a hollow smile nailed to my face and watched my energetic colleagues receive (well-deserved) awards and dance with their love interests...

...I drove home, and got on Facebook, to see that my soon-to-be-ex had thrown himself a birthday party, and was surrounded by many of our mutual friends...

...And I sat in my bed and cried. And then had a lengthy phone conversation with a totally inappropriate person, and drank a lot of vodka, and eventually fell asleep, not knowing if or when anything would change.

And now, today. A year later. Everything is different, in all the best ways imaginable. I'm removed from that life, that environment, and most of those people. I'm safe, and busy, and I have the only thing that I knew I wanted. I'm home, and I'm trying to re-build a life that I never should have left.

Fittingly, tonight--on a cold, sleety night, just before the start of winter-- I attended a concert performance at the UU Church here in town called "Made in Indiana", featuring one of my favorite musicians, Tim Grimm. He, and another musician, and two authors, all shared their reflections and stories of life in Indiana, and Tim sang a song about the winter solstice, that dark time of the year...basically, where I was this time last year. Then I was struggling, reaching out for any sort of hope, reassurance, validation, no matter the source. Now I am in a quiet place in my life, laying fallow, perhaps. My soul is regenerating, I suppose you could say. I imagine that in a while, I shall be ready for more hope, more experiences, more possibilities, more risk. 

For now, it's enough that I am here, and that everything is different. 

"No, we are not alone, this night is not the end...

Brothers and sisters, all around, 

a new day is ready to begin..."

And just like that, a month has passed. And what a month it has been--filled with all of the things that I've missed about Indiana. The food, the people, the weather, the land. The strangest thing is allowing myself to adjust to the fact that I don't need to get everything done in a certain amount of time. Always before, I was vacationing here, and had to cram in this event, that sightseeing, those friends in a limited period of time, and if I didn't get a chance, well, I'd have to wait for the next time.

Now, of course, there is no end point (other than death, but let's not focus too much on that just now), because I am never ever ever moving away from Indiana again, so there's more time--all the time, actually--to see and do and experience and taste and explore. Of course, I thought that before, when I lived here for grad school, and put off many things, to my detriment. So it's a tricky balance, permitting myself to do things at my leisure, and yet not putting them off. And it's made all the trickier by working 5 days a week, and still trying to get settled in. Turns out moving cross-country is no mean feat.

Not a day goes by that I don't pause and remind myself that I am so frickin blessed to be here. I keep waiting for the reality to settle in (perhaps it will with my first paycheck), keep waiting for the blues, for loneliness, for regret. But so far, there is none. None at all. There's only me, and this day here in Hoosierville, and my determination to enjoy every minute, hour, day, week, month, and year of it. I will live and die here, and I want to make sure that there's a lot of life in the living part of it.

No more wishing I was somewhere else, doing something else, with someone else.

Just me, here, now.

Third Time's The Charm...

"But she wasn't back where she'd started; she'd simply arrived where she'd left off, this time smarter and stronger and maybe even stripped of illusions." -Kate Bollick


The First Time of Significance...

The fall I was 14, my paternal grandmother--a dotty old woman we called Lady Sue, I don't even know why--called me up, all excited because she had gotten a good deal on an airplane ticket and wanted to fly me up to see her and her husband, my Grandpa Fritz. (Again, not sure why we called him that. They were a couple of odd ducks to be sure; to this day my sisters and I recall an incident concerning them and a fight over ketchup and peas, and no one remembers the outcome, but we sure as heck remember the fight).

So I flew up to Indianapolis in October 1994 and visited my grandparents, and their son, my uncle, picked me up and drove me down to Bloomington. It was a great place to live, he told me. He raved about what a young, vibrant feel the place had, what with it being a university town and all. I was 14; to me, college was ages away and only promised troubling things like...College Algebra. The only other things about Bloomington that stood out to me were the grey, chilly weather and the piles of dead leaves; accustomed as I was to the balmy climes of Florida, this was a novelty to me, and I begged my uncle to let me rake his lawn.

The Second Time of Significance...

The late summer of 2004, when I was 24, I arrived in Bloomington, chased out of Florida by a hurricane. I was excited to live somewhere brand-new and completely different, and for the first six weeks of my time there, I was completely starry-eyed, enchanted with the old buildings and houses, the swarms of young people, the amazing variety of foods, the different trees and climate...Of course, the feeling didn't last; grad school and real life and yes, winter and the feeling of being trapped in a small town all overwhelmed me, and while I still loved it, the novelty wore off.

The Third Time of Significance...

Now. Right Now. Spring of 2016, almost 10 years since I moved away from Bloomington, I am back. Yesterday, when driving through the downtown area to meet up with friends for lunch, that old sense of wonder tugged at me a little. Bloomington is a bit magical--"a town forever young", I once read it described as--but I am not forever young. I am not 14 or 24. I'm almost 36, about to be divorced, basically circling back around to the beginning and trying to pick up a different thread of my life story. It's almost like, when I was young, I'd read the "Choose Your Own Adventure" novels in reverse,  carefully following which storylines and choices took me to the best outcome. Only I'm doing it now, living my life in reverse a little.

 I don't have many dreams and hopes beyond what has driven me over the past year--stay alive, get divorced, protect yourself, get out. Now that all of that has been accomplished... I'm not thinking too much about anything else other than "being successful at my new job" and "being worthy of this new third time..." I don't really know what comes next. But I've been given a chance, and this time, I hope I get it right.

How I Fear...Er, Fare

And then we came to the end.

Almost, anyway. Tomorrow is my last full day at the Library--the place that has been more of a home to me than any other building in California. Where I have been surrounded by kind, patient colleagues and supervisors that I've trusted for a long time. Where I've had the most financial and emotional security in my life. Where I felt challenged at first, and later confident, and later still too confident, and then pigeonholed and therefore somewhat resentful, most of all towards myself. But always, always,  I felt at home. Safe, and sheltered.

In 1.5 days, I am willingly walking away from that shelter. From those people, from my cubicle (now rendered almost barren), from the patrons both annoying and beloved (sometimes both), from the last known quantity in my life.

"Are you scared?" one of my colleagues asked me last week. Maybe that's not the type of question people ask each other in the workplace, but it's the kind of question that I've always answered, because I am compulsively honest, so why break the habit of the last 10 years of my life.

"I think I am," I told my colleague honestly. "But I'm scared in the same way I was when I moved to California. Then I was fucking terrified; I just didn't allow myself to realize it until after I was done and the fear had passed."

Of course I am scared. I'm scared my cats won't take their sedatives and will yowl and pee all over themselves on the long trip home. I'm afraid that I'll encounter snow on the drive, or that my car will break down, or I will die in an accident before I ever make it to Indiana. I'm scared that I've been too long in one organizational culture and won't be able to adapt. I'm scared that even with all this leadershippy self-awareness, I'll still fall into the same patterns, and won't be any different--just another worker bee that won't distinguish herself or help the Library innovate. I'm scared of everything, but at least what lies ahead is unknown, has as much potential for success as failure, whereas this present is simply more of the same--sustaining, holding the line. It's time to move forward, even if it's just a bit of a lurch.

It's time to be scared. I've gone too long in one spot, sheltered, not adapting.

Let's see what comes of my fear. Let's see what comes next.

A long time ago, I heard a silly superstition...something along the lines of "Be mindful of what you do in the New Year, for you will do it all year."

Well. If that's the case, then, judging by this picture below, taken on January 1, 2016, I will spend the whole year hiding my hangover, but being surrounded by trusted, beloved friends and adopted family. I will spend it looking fabulous, smiling past the pain and looking out with eyes filled with optimism. I will spend it unaware of the magic of change which hovers about me, but open to it nonetheless. 

Because that's what I did this New Year's Day, and now, two months later, everything is different. Everything has changed. I look at this picture of me--recently come out of perhaps the saddest Christmas of my life, desperate to leave 2015 behind, yet completely unaware of when or even if my circumstances would change any time soon, and I marvel at how we never know how things can shift so utterly, so quickly. 

Only two months ago have passed since this picture was taken. How is that even possible?

What will my life be like two months from now?

The Shadow Recedes

Blearily, I stumbled out of bed--washed my face, brushed my teeth, ironed my hair, donned my outfit, painted my face, took my pills, fed my cats, grabbed my things, locked the door. Outside my home, it wasn't QUITE daytime yet--the sun was shining, and casting a golden-pinkish-orange light over Mt. San Jacinto. The shadow of the mountain had not yet crept over the land. It was 50 degrees out that morning, and no doubt all over the desert, people were sitting on their patios, sipping their coffee, and marveling at the magic of living life in Southern California in January.

Not me.

This was just two days ago. As I drove to work at an ungodly hour--the Goon Festival required brutal work this week--Mt. San Jacinto glowing rosily at me for a good part of the time--I thought of bleak winter mornings back home, in Indiana. It was about 3 degrees that morning, back home.

I thought of how days and weeks and months and years slipped by, as I sat at the reference desk and watched patrons browse the new books, and helped them find their information, and watched ten years of my life slip past, as the Library (my true home in California) changed subtly while I passively sat by. Sure, I changed too, took on new tasks and cheerfully evolved--although my position and salary didn't, past a certain point. But there's no denying the fact that a lot of years chugged along while I sat in the same spot, both literally and metaphorically. Time was still chugging along, actually. How many more days am I going to have to watch the sun rise here? I pondered, more than a little grumpily. How many more Goon Festivals will I have to staff?

I thought of the countless dreams I have had, through the years, of returning home. Of course, Dream Home is weirdly different and surreal--sometimes an amalgamation of Real Home and many other life memories--and sometimes just plain NOT real, but still, hauntingly, mournfully familiar.

And then I thought, randomly, about how suddenly things can change. How you can chug along, quietly, trying to make the changes happen. And they won't happen, perhaps--until, unexpectedly, they DO, and then everything changes. And it happens that suddenly, and swiftly, and subtlely.

All of these thoughts, I had as I drove to work on Tuesday morning. And realizing that the change would happen, sometime, somehow, some way, brought me a little bit of peace, finally.

Later that morning, I got a phone call from a potential employer.

So I Guess You Call This Autumn (2015 Version)

Today was totally one of those "fooled you!" kind of days. I could have pretended that it was a gloomy Midwestern fall day, just looking out the window at the leaden-grey skies. Unfortunately, the second I stepped outside, I knew (and felt) the ugly truth: it was 90 degrees with 70% humidity. Just another late summer day in the deserts of Southern California. Still, I indulged in imagining cold air against my skin, gloomy evenings, rain lashing against the windows, pleasantly warm (not oppressively hot) kitchens. Pretty imaginings, and not really anything that could get me too homesick.

But, even so, the homesickness lurks. Yesterday, I gave Duncle a call. It was the first time I had spoken with him since my magical summer vacation, and as soon as I started talking to him, I realized why: the sound of his voice pretty much made me burst into homesick tears.

Today, there was no new news or word from the jobs that I applied to last week. And tonight, no new potential jobs posted. It's easy to just swing into utter despair, but day by torturously long day, I fiercely struggle not to. I will tell myself this as much as I need to, until I accept and believe it: every day I am still "stuck" out here is an opportunity--to retrench financially, to improve my health, to make myself more marketable, to build my character (oooh, goody, another character-building experience), to get all my ducks in a row.

Someday, I will go home. Some day, I will enjoy that chilly fall weather. Who knows? Maybe I will enjoy it with someone. Or not. For now, it is enough for me to strive for this simple, modest thing: a fulfilling job that enables me to go home to Indy and spend the rest of my life there.

Going through the Library tonight, checking the doors and locks and preparing to close the same as I have done hundreds of times over the past eight years, it occurred to me that it feels a little like the end is close–closer than I think. Or maybe I am just gently, slowly detaching. Kind of like that X-Files episode, where Scully was caught between life and death, and deciding if she wanted to cut the rope from the people who loved her, and drift away to whatever came next, or be reeled back into shore. 

I don’t know when the end will come, when I will leave the Library and California, and this life that I have grown accustomed to, but I want to be emotionally ready when that happens. 

(And no, this is not a post about suicide. Don’t worry, folks, it’s a post about moving home.)