Sunday, November 29, 2009

The Sunday Sadness

Sunday sadness is pretty common for me. My friend and I both suffer from what we call "Sunday Depression" in which we already miss the weekend, and already are tired of working and it's not quite yet Monday.

Sundays are even harder when you sleep all night next to the one you love, and wake to lock the door behind them at 7am. When you go back to bed and lay on their pillow, and spend the rest of the day on your own.

Luckily my sister came to rescue me and make me go to the grocery store, where I saw practically everyone I know. They all asked "Are you excited about DC? Where are you going to live?" My answers? 'YES!' 'With friends!'

My real answers? "Sort of!" "On a couch...somewhere!"

Truth is, my life is getting ready to enter a real period of uncertainty. My job ends on Wednesday, and it will finally end a three-week "long goodbye" and put us all out of our misery I think. I am distracting my co-workers--they keep popping in my cube with long faces and "This is the last time we'll go get a sandwich" statements. I am distracting my boss, who is being incredibly kind throughout this entire ordeal.

By sitting in that same cubicle day in, day out--I am distracting myself from facing the reality of what's about to happen.

Thank god I have a few friends still in DC that I can stay with. I haven't been in their daily lives for over 4 years now, and I'm a bit nervous about all that I'm about to ask of them. They have been so gracious and hospitable and we'll all get through it just fine. Living with them may be the best thing for me, honestly, since I'm going to have some lonely feelings at the first.

I find myself OD'ing on the people I love. Wanting to see them all the time, and especially spending (too much) time with the one I love--the one I'm trying to leave behind. And I'm glad to leave it behind, but today it's so damn hard.

I am missing people, when they're right in front of me.

And as I pack their pictures in a box.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Here I Go Again

I guess it's just so hard to write about.

My emotions are zig-zagging from excited to sad, and everything seems to take on a heightened sense of importance and meaning. Every time one of the kids raises their arms for me to hold them, or a friend and I meet for drinks at 'our' bar, or I hug someone I love close, I feel that...stomach drop.

You know the feeling--that dip when you experience something that fills you with emotion. You watch the one you love leaving you, you're about to give a speech, or you watch someone you love get married.

Last Saturday, my sister and I took my nephew to the park. He is a whirlwind of a boy, and has more energy than I can imagine even for a two-year-old. He ran from one thing on the playground to another for about a half an hour, and then he just felt like taking a sit-down right there in the grass and looking at the trees for awhile. My sister and I got on either side of him, and we all held hands & looked at the trees together. It was almost-warm & almost-cool and I watched the colored leaves dance in the wind and felt such content.

My sister asked if I was excited to move, and I mentioned that it'll be a big adjustment to be without my family again. To not have the "daily" life with all of them, and to realize that sometimes I'll be alone and not want to be. I wasn't sad, or outwardly saying anything that would show that I was upset. However, my nephew got up unprompted, came over to me and buried himself in my arms.

He laid his eyes on my shoulder and patted my back. I closed my mine.

Stomach: drop.



My three-year-old niece tonight said "I loooooooove Morgan!" (Morgan, her friend at school.) My two-year-old niece pointed at me and said "Me love YOU".

Stomach: drop.



My friend teared up at the bar the other night and grabbed my hand for a second before clearing her throat, moving briskly on other conversation. My granny just said "Why?" with this devastated look on her face today when I said I was moving. My cousin said I'd miss the baby being born.

I feel so guilty. I feel excited, and I feel so incredibly scared. I'll be on my own again--truly on my own--for the first time in so long. On the way home in the car tonight, I saw a shooting star and I whispered "Please, please make this be worth something" as my wish.

This is a good thing--these are exciting things about to happen. But how I'll miss my co-pilots in this adventure.







Here I go again:



Stomach: drop.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Tomorrow...

Turned into today. I accepted the job in DC today, so it's back I go, after 4 years here in Kentucky.

Details to follow...

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

And I wonder as I wander...

Every day feels like the last day before something happens.

I keep thinking--maybe tomorrow, I'll hear for sure. Maybe tomorrow I will be able to set into motion my plans for the future.

Maybe tomorrow will be the first day of the rest of my life.

I tried to communicate all this crazyness to my doctor on Monday, and I walked out with a prescription for some anxiety meds that will hopefully help. I felt really strange going into the doctor to ask for medicine to help me cope with what is honestly, a GREAT problem to be having. I feel so ungrateful sometimes, as I watch unemployment numbers rise and I sit and fret and brood over which opportunity to take next.

But, it's not about not being grateful for the things that are there. I am constantly thinking of how lucky I am, and continuously grateful that I have opportunities at all. I know how fleeting it all can be, too, which is why I also feel such urgency to take whatever opportunity presents itself in a sure way first.

Which will hopefully be....tomorrow.

I keep looking at pictures tonight, old ones, mostly of when I studied abroad in Denmark. I look at that 21 year old girl, with the short blond hair and silver glasses, and I miss her. God, how I miss that girl who was SO confident of herself that she got on a plane with complete strangers to spend a summer across the ocean. I miss that girl with the chunky silver necklace, baggy gray pants and I always wore that blue jacket. With the hood--it was always raining.

I am thinking of the nights I wrote in my green notebook for hours on the streetcorners of Copenhagen. And how funny it is that 7 years later, I write now to all of you, as I wait for the morning. And wait for the rest of my life, carrying that 21 year old within me, always.

Was that the best I'll ever be?

Sunday, November 8, 2009

The 3 Hardest Things About Leaving







Grace and beauty, on a Sunday.

Thursday, November 5, 2009

On a Jet Plane

I'm sitting in Charlotte airport, waiting for my plane to leave for DC this morning. I've been up since 4, and will be up for many more hours before I'm back home tonight on this whirlwind of a day. Still interviewing, still wondering, still waiting.

Closure will come soon, as I believe this is the very last round. I will be glad for that. I come back home tonight, arriving by midnight. With miles to go before I sleep, I'm sitting here trying to make the caffeine start working.

My days seem to be passing with a combination of slow but urgent. I need downtime, I need time to be still -but I can't find it. I can't seem to let my mind and body rest, and I'm feeling a need to cram in as much time as possible with everyone. Everything takes on a feeling of "while I can" urgency and so I wake up earlier and go to bed later so I can try to fit it all in. This especially includes my nieces and nephews!

And lest it seem like I'm complaining, here's a picture of sweetness on Saturday night trick or treat :)



My life is busy and blurred --but I wouldn't have it any other way.