While on the Topic of Notepad

While living with my parents for ten months, as a newlywed couple no less, was not ideal, we started to make it work.  I surrendered our laundry situation to the high heavens, forgot about what items I owned and lived off of what was necessary, and on most nights rested comfortably with my husband and our two, selfish, gigantic, labs.

Then, as if a light bulb went on in our heads, we had a wonderful idea.  Spend some of that money that we are saving because we don't pay for much of anything, and go away.  Two days at a time.  Just disappear.  Live it up.

Our final trip, before K's marvelous job landed in our life and we found a beautiful rental, we travelled to the Edgewater.

He picked me up after work.  I ran to his car, changed out of scrubs in the back while we rode the ferry, and found ourselves at happy hour at Six Seven some 60 minutes later.  The water on one side of us, a half off menu on the other.  That night he watched football while I took a ridiculously long, hot shower, washing whatever stress the day produced down the stone drain.

The train rode past at least every hour.  The city was alive. I was happy that we had a skyline view rather than a water view.  I see the water all the time.  Seattle itself is a once and awhile treat.  High off of the opportunity, and getting drunk off of red wine (that hurts so much later), here is what I produced.


The city at my right hand.  A glass of red wine in my left.  We are lucky.  The city is still mine, more than ever before.  Not meant truly for the 21 year olds, but those later in life who are open fully to its gifts and promises.  It's my first love.  My  current lover not jealous, open to share.  No kids, no mortgage, limited responsibility outside of work.  This is what we want out of life right now.  

These are our rebellious year.  Red wine in a rock glass, terry cloth robe on, and that big red E that has been tempting me for so long.  I'm back.  I'm home.  Let's explore.  You are mine, Seattle.

We are staying put longer than expected.  Learning to live without our "things". Memories stored in our heads not that blue box.  Parents happy.  Dogs happy. Getting to cook for four.  And doing this once and awhile.  

We adapt.  I to PA. He, here.  We to our situation.  Adapt and learn to be grateful.  No one situation is ideal.  No ones.  It's whoever learns to appreciate,who ends out coming out on top.  

That air.  Oh that air.  My oxygen. So attached to memories which I don't even remember.  


I don't know what made me stop there.  I probably spilled the wine or another trained passed.  Looking back, it's almost as if I released our problems into the universe, and it came back with a solution.  We have been in our new place for a few weeks now.  Nights in the city are now on the back burner.  Money spent on hotels is now being saved for necessities around here.


Its all important.  Its all good.  The opportunity to stay with my parents brought blessings.  Moving a half an hour away will have its own too.  We are given exactly what we need in life, we just have to realize it.

These years are still rebellious.  I plan on making them count.

I Will Do Better

I already deleted the post that I started two Fridays ago.  It seemed silly. Boring.  Weak.  And that makes me frustrated and exposed.  I don't want to write if its going to be meaningless and read like one is reading from a high school journal. While I took a break, (of what? a month?) I went back and forth with whether I should pick this up again.  No, I would think.  Everyone and their mother has a blog now.  Its not a serious thing to do.  You look stupid, I would say.  Is there anything important that you need to share?

But then I would catch myself.  In the car, repeating memories in my head, lucky to remember their little moments and wishing that I would always hold onto how they made me feel.  Then there were the times which were so mundane, yet a life revelation would pop up.  Something simple, but profound.  Maybe I wrote it down on a piece of paper, but that scrap is long gone now.  These little examples showed me that yes, I have something to say, if not only for myself to read later.  And of course, everything changed in such a significant way last month, and all I wanted to do was write, to share, to reach out to this blogging community, to convince others to love as much as they could, to connect and show how we are all similar, and to inspire you to share your story better than I could.

Boxes were in the process of being packed and the computer was just too overwhelming to try and fix.  So I typed furiously on my iPhone, even though I despise the font used in notepad. And even though it looked like way more on that tiny screen, it speaks more to me now.

We may have a lack of faith in humanity now, but what we really need is to have more confidence in ourselves.   I wrote.

Sure, there are more outlets to display what we think and how we can stand up for what we believe in, but underneath we are still scared.  Why don't we have more faith in ourselves to change? To love more. To use our gifts.  To reach out and be the best that we can be.  Not for success or fame, but for the betterment of our world.  

I have to write.  I have to remember and I have to push myself to be great.  I have to write more so that I can write better.  I have to be consistent and I have to not give up.  This is a part of me now, whether its a shitty too many paragraphs or a brilliant sentence--there's no going back.  A month off was just enough time to realize what blogging does for me.  There may be a piddly amount of comments and who the hell knows who's stalking instead of enjoying this.  It doesn't matter.  I blog for me now and that's all I can guarantee.

Winter Break

Well the blogger app has certainly improved since the last time I used it.

Things are a little busy right now in that we are finally moving into our own place and trying to figure out what our life here should mean. It seems overwhelming to find a place to write, among the piles of clothes and dogs.

But soon and very soon, all will have a place. And with that little bit of organization, words will come easier and sentences will flow. In the meantime, check back in January and I promise I will work harder than ever to make this blog something special.

Those Dark and Stormy Nights

I've had to fight the persistent urge to let out a long, loud groan every time I look at the sky.  When I look up, the sun is either just coming up or just setting.  If I happen to stay even a few minutes late at work, precious moments of sunshine are immediately sacrificed.  Days off seem significantly shorter, as if I unwillingly took a pay cut and I was always paid in vitamin D.  The dogs are crazy.  Cabin fever is setting in.  And this all is based on the assumption that it will not rain. 

But of course, it does rain.  A lot.  That's just how it is this time of the year


Something has been off lately.  Nothing has really changed.  Same diet, same activity level, same amount of sleep, same frequency of sock stealing by the yellow dog, same happenings at work, same relationship status.  But, something is still not right.  Its been creeping up slowly, a little bit of anxiety here and there, heartburn at times, and that familiar desire to just hide under the covers and start over tomorrow. 


It creeps up, in, until I see it in the corner.  What are you doing here? I think.

I got rid of you years ago.


But, you haven't lived here in awhile. K reminds me. 

The days are shorter here.  Its gloomier in the winter.  The sun coming through the basement windows was my savior of winters past. 


I thought I got rid of you.  I thought I was done with you. 


You're ready for this though.  K tells me.  You know what to do. 

When I Lived Next to I-5

In my early, early twenties, I lived just on the outskirts of the city.  School was a mile away and the mall and a Target were within walking distance.  I lived in a studio apartment which once allowed me to see the very tail end of the 4th of July firework show one Summer.  I swung one leg out the window, which never had a screen anyways, straddled the window sill and looked up at the sky, amazed, blessed, in love with where I lived.  The kitchen was a decent size and allowed me to cook on the nights that I didn't pick up my favorite Mexican food.  I walked Green Lake several times a week.  I was independent and had a fantastic sense of self. 

But, I was very lonely.  Twenty and living in an apartment rather than on a campus, I didn't fit in with the locals who had graduated and worked full time.  But, I didn't connect with those on the University campus or the local community college either.  K was back on the East Coast then and weeks after we reconnected, asked me point blank if I was lonely, and still remembers the pain in my voice.  Yes, I was, but I had the city and that was enough for awhile. 


It really wasn't hard, looking back on it.  A newfound diagnosis of depression didn't help but I thrived.  I thrived because I kept a routine, pushed forward, and started appreciating those little luxuries that make up life.  The bathtub was tiny, but bubble baths were a must.  I kept primroses on the railing across from the front door entrance.  Many days, I ventured downtown and just walked around.  I saved my money so I could buy buffalo mozzarella and really good olive oil.  If I was going to be alone at this time in my life, well, I was going to be good company. 

K stayed up til the wee hours of the morning to have our nightly chats. He experienced every season in Seattle before I moved East.  I felt the loneliest on the days when I left him at the airport and drove the empty highway by myself, listening to John Mayer songs. We would dream about the days when we could be together and not have to rush.  To just be able to grab a pizza and share it.  To window shop.  To waste a whole day watching tv together.  To walk through a farmers market.  To just be. 




All of it was important.  I was self-taught in that little apartment.  I was tested in Pennsylvania.  Now we are here, and the work doesn't stop.  We are always pushed to identify ourselves and find what we are looking for.  We have to combine that early relationship with the core experiences from PA, and mix it into this new environment.  I'm not the girl who hangs out of windows anymore.  We watch fireworks from the highschool parking lot.  Life is very different for both of us.  Still, we are together and the loneliness is gone. 





 

First

Okay, so it went like this: we got married last October, then moved across the entire country the following February.

They say the first year is the hardest, and I'm certain that most people say that without having to live with parents or in-laws.  Or move back home or to a new part of the country.  Infact, I would say that most people don't have to do anything really that hard, except pay bills and write thank you notes and learn how to get along, in their first year of marriage.  The really big stuff, the kind of stuff that makes life hard in general, has nothing to do with just getting married at all.  It just so happened that we had a couple of really big stuff kind of things mixed in there too. 


It was a very hard year.  But, it would have been that way if we had moved in five years.  It too, was a fast year.  In a blink, I went from the girl dancing in her hotel room with her only remaining bridesmaid with a veil on her head, to someone who doesn't think twice about stating her new name. 

It went that fast.  So, maybe it wasn't that hard afterall. 

We stayed the night in Seattle on what would have been the anniversary of the day before the day before our wedding.  Just us walking the streets of Seattle, just us checking into the Westin (which seemed way bigger last year), and just us quietly celebrating a year.  Not just an anniversary of a date, but a whole year of growth, discovery, fighting, frustrations, bills, and thank you notes. 

A whole year later, I find myself saying that I wish I could do it all over again.  I know that's not true because planning a wedding is a miserable thing to do.  But, one night of having everyone we love in one room, yes, that is missed. 

I would do it over, maybe, but I really just like being married.  I like that we are one year down.  We made it, although its not like we weren't going to make it.  I like that we don't expect things to be perfect because we had that one perfect, solid day last year.  I like that we only had enough to afford one night in Seattle, and didn't exchange gifts and actually exchanged cards the day after our anniversary because we were lazy.  I like that we ate burgers and fries the night that we stayed over and watched sports documentaries on ESPN.

 I like that I am a little bit different now and so is he. 

Fireworks

Last month in Sunset magazine, Scott Aker described Fall in the Pacific Northwest: 

In the East, fall is like a really long parade from north to south. In the West, it’s like fireworks: a spectacular burst of beautiful colors over a short time.

I don't remember the colors of past Falls here.  All I can conjure is images of crisp sunny days, dead leaves underfoot, and then the realization that the rainy season has begun, signaling winter.  Missing from these memories are the vibrant colors that I'm seeing this Autumn.

We are back from the East Coast.  Ten days in Pennsylvania, where it was not quite one season or another.  I packed shorts, but the nights were bitter cold.  The weather couldn't make up its mind. 

 
We returned to literally change right before our eyes.  Not only are the leaves falling during the shortened days, but life is so completely different than it was in September.  K has a job now and with it the confidence and stability that most jobs bring. 

It was an expected accomplishment, but something that took so long to happen. 

And then, just like that, boom.  Offer accepted, life is different. 

Its a good different.  With its own share of adjustments and rearranging.

We work opposite schedules right now. 

But, there's always someone home with the dogs. 

Its nice for each of us to have personal time. 

Extra money doesn't suck either. 

All the while, I am just taken back by how quickly time flies. Soon the holidays will be upon us. After that, a new year.  At times, we are frustrated with where we are in our lives, while other times we are overwhelmed with how much we have done. 

Maybe it all comes down to how much you stop to notice.  Did I have memories of past Fall colors?  Or did I just not take the time to look?  It is but a fleeting moment here, a sudden, intense burst of oranges and yellows.  If you don't purposefully seek it out, then there is nothing to hold onto.  Things change so quickly, and don't seem to change at all I guess, if you don't really sit down and look at it all. 

So, I am back to blogging.  Back to seeking out what I want in life.  Back to recording and creating adventures.  Back to pushing myself to do better.  I think I slacked over the last two months.  My Summer List was a decent attempt at reaching out and exploring the season and surroundings.  There was always a constant thought in the back of my head, "You have not yet jumped in a lake fully clothed."  There was ample opportunity, but overall a lackluster spirit to do so.  I think it was because there was always the backup thought of  "I will do that later." 

Well, there won't be a Fall list, and you'll have to wait for Spring.  But you better believe that there will be more of an effort this Fall to do more.  Feel more. 

Its only a short season here.  Soon, the cold rain will push the leaves off of their branches and clog drain pipes.  Yes, winter is a special time too, but nothing can compare to the bounty that this season brings.  It may not be like the Fall that we've known back East, but I've always liked fireworks better than parades anyways.