Just for being there

I just wrote this in an email to our Ms Moon--

"Thanks for just being there. As the sun sets on 2009, know that you have been a great joy to me in this year, even from afar. Thinking of you."

And it occured me that these were words I could send out to all my (few) bloggers who have been reading about my journey, and have offered me words of encouragement, support, and wisdom along the way.

This blog has been an unexpected safe haven for me throughout this exceptionally difficult year. And, has provided a well of support through the changes it has brought.

So thanks to you all. And know that each of you have been a great joy to me, in your own special ways. Be safe tonight, and I am thinking of you all as I sit here on my first night in my new apartment, finally on my own after several weeks of transition. I'm arranging my bookshelves, washing my clothes, and enjoying preparing for my new start.

My dad told me tonight--you're ringing in the new year by living it.

I hope so.

I do.

I just wish I could sit down to write about it. I wish my mind would stop racing with the next person I need to hug, the next errand I have to run, the next box I have to pack.

I have been home for Christmas for a few days now, and the moving van comes on Tuesday to take everything to DC. My parents are helping, and they'll be with me til Friday morning. Then I'll have the weekend to adjust in my new home, my new life, on my own.

I wish I could let my head and heart catch up with one another. I wish I could tell you all about it and really let you feel what I'm feeling but I just can't yet.

Soon.

Snow

It's up to my knees so far--and SO not over!

Home

I have a new home. I survived my first week of work. And all is well.

DC is in the process, as I type, of being smacked with our first (and probably last) snowstorm of the season. Almost 2 feet is expected to fall by the time it's all said and done. So I'm anticipating lots of time for thoughtful reflection and a much more thorough wrap-up over the next couple of days :)

For now, I'll leave you a picture of my new place. Description of my new life to follow...

Not feeling so brave...

Right now. Am feeling a little homesick...and a lot overwhelmed. I forgot how hard everything is here--from the parking to the driving to the smallest trip to the drugstore, everything takes more steps, more money and more frustration.

I'm tired. I'm just plain tired from the insomnia that has ravaged me for weeks now, and I didnt sleep for shit last night. I'm staying with a friend that - god bless - gave me her spare room. With a spare bed, located right under drafty windows :) So I was freezing, homesick, and wondering what in the hell I was doing this for.

Things were better this morning. And now my friend is gone for the weekend, leaving me alone in the house which oddly makes things a little bit better so I can get some downtime. I have my blanket and pillow from home, my pajama's on (at 5pm) and I fixed myself a drink. I'll watch a movie, and try to SLEEP tonight.

Tomorrow I go look at apartments...wish me luck!

It will be ok. Right?

But everything else is the same...

I leave tomorrow. My apartment still seems the same--boxes in the floor, my cat asleep on the pillow. But tomorrow, it's all to change. My dad will come fetch the cat, help me load my car and I'll be off. I have my suitcases packed, my clothes are washed, and Charlie (the cat) has his bags packed too.

I've had a string of people in and out of here today, telling me goodbye. I'm so lucky to have such wonderful people in my life--I'm desperately hopeful they'll remain in it.

I am going to my friend's house to spend the night in a few minutes. We'll watch TV until late, then wake up in the morning and I'll come home to pack up my stuff. And we'll try not to cry until we leave each other.

I was on my old blog earlier today, and I found the entry I wrote when I left DC to come back here to Kentucky. I included a few lines of a song that still seems appropriate...

"The house is empty with the pictures taken off the shelves
The light's still on, but it's waiting for someone else
And the memories gone, like peices taken from myself
Goodbye Baby...
If this is how it has to be."

This is how it has to be. Please, please...let this be worth it.

Backward, Forward, and Everywhere in Between

Six years.

I'm sitting in a coffee shop, around the corner from where I used to "live" with friends for a bit before I found my own apartment here in DC. I rounded that corner today and saw that old house, sitting there in its bricked rowhouse glory--gorgeous. It took my breath away for a minute to see it. That stoop where I spent an incredible amount of time with a cigarette or a beer, shooting the shit with my friend Anna. She lived in the house with two roommates, and even after I stopped sleeping on the couch, I still spent a ton of time there.



It was the only place that felt like home to me here, even though I had two apartments after that. I am here today looking for places to live, and have decided to stick to this area again. I feel the need to reconnect with that part of my past self, and try to find that sense of "alive" I uesd to feel here.

Six years ago I took the red line metro to the building where I'll be working again in 11 days.

It even smells the same.

Am I going two steps forward, or taking three steps back? Sometimes, I honestly have no idea. It's a much higher job title, great new position--but all this symmetry with my younger days is a little weird for me.

I guess it only matters that I feel like I'm at home again, sitting here, and seeing the way the light hits these brick buildings and brick sidewalks and these dozens of people walking fast, fast, fast to get wherever they're going.

Yesterday I walked out of my office for the last time. They gave me a party with some cake and my favorite chocolate cupcakes, a card, and I had to give a song-and-dance "thanks for the memories" speech. My co-worker carried my box down for me, gave me a hug and walked away quickly with a brisk look back in my direction. Another one told my boss yesterday in the middle of one her rants & raves of complaining "And now SJ's leaving and I feel like I'm going to die!"

Well--no one there will die upon my absence, believe me! In a few minutes, a conference call with my old Board will commence and my departure will be announced. They might look at my chair sadly for a moment, and then they'll remember they need more coffee. They'll go home, and then the next day, it will be like I was never there at all. And so it was, and so it will be.

Have these sidewalks here missed me? Will I feel like I'm going home when I go back to the bars here where that wonderfully young 22 year old that was me first fell in love with this city? Or will I come and go again as quickly as I did before?

Six years. A lifetime for me.

So off I go now, forward and backward, all at the same time. And so it was.

And so it will be.