growing out (parental advisory)

PARENTAL ADVISORY: Mutti & Papa, I'm just warning you, you guys will probably find this very sad. New empty nesters, parents of college freshmen, and parents of any adolescents, teenagers, college students, and young adults will probably join in the cryfest. Like I said, I'm just warning you!

I.

Outgrowing

Remember when we were little, about 7 or 8, for example, and it seemed like we needed new clothes every week, because the dresses we'd been wearing suddenly exposed most of our skinny little thighs instead of ending below the knee? Remember how you had to wrestle the dresses away from us to "wash" them, and take them straight to the curb because they were so threadbare they were almost transparent, and anyway like I said they were suddenly 10 sizes too small? And you had to take them straight to the curb because if you didn't we would pull them out of the rag drawer and put them back on and get more grass stains on the grass stains?

(Totally made-up situation, of course...)

At some point you realize there are bigger clothes in the world that would fit us better, whether we like it or not.

Remember later on, when we were 11 or 13 or 15, and we started pretending to be asleep when you came to tuck us in at night, and learned how to roll our eyes, and stopped returning your hugs, and constantly schemed up ways to get out of your house?

I hope you didn't take it personally. At some point we realize the world is bigger than the world we have so far experienced, and we want to try it on and see how it fits -- whether you like it or not.

II.

Growing Up

I remember the moment my parents' faces and voices changed as it suddenly dawned on them that they had to pass on the baton and trust that they'd taught me well enough how to hold onto it.

I remember when I first pieced together the fact that my parents didn't have any grand secrets for navigating the world. Until that revelation, I was waiting for the ritual during which the key to adulthood would be bestowed upon me, complete with a detailed guidebook and map.

SPOILER ALERT: That ritual never happens (not yet, anyway). Or, it's at least not held in a dark room full of candles on the eve of your 17th birthday. Nobody is wearing cloaks (probably). There is no master of ceremonies who splashes holy wisdom water in your eyes, hangs the key on its thread around your neck, and sets the guidebook solemnly into your outstretched hands.

That ritual is much more drawn-out, over the course of years and maybe even decades, through every misstep and stumble and trial and error. It's drawn out over every new job and internship and tax return, over every courtship and breakup, every friendship and mentorship and through all our courses and classes and travels. Every now and then we dig up and dust off a key that looks promising, and we're cruising for awhile on our newfound adulthood, until we come up against another locked door and it starts all over again.

I can't say for sure, because I am by no means at the end of this epic quest, but I'd put money on the fact that there will always be another locked door ahead of us. No one hands us the key and the guidebook to adulthood because nobody has it.

Just a guess.

For now I'm jangling my ring of keys and just hoping I have one that works.

III.

Outgoing

It's been quite an exciting, fast summer in our house. Last night we had nine people at dinner; the night before you could see a different combination of 9 people around the fire pit in our backyard, and a bunch more people inside.

This morning I walked into the kitchen and Papa was washing dishes in there (atypical to run into him at 7:30am). He asked me how I was and I mumbled something amounting to "fine," and I after a minute I asked, "How are you doing?"

"Oh... I'm sad."

Which was, of course, heartbreaking.

More heartbreaking was the fact that I didn't even have to ask why, because the reason he was up so early was because he had just gotten back from dropping off Maria and Mutti in Philly, where they got on a plane to St. Olaf (via Minneapolis). Mutti will be gone until Sunday, but Maria won't be back until at least Thanksgiving, most likely.

Adding heartbreak to heartbreak, Thomas is leaving tomorrow to spend next semester in Berlin, and adding heartbreak to double heartbreak, the day after that is my official move-in day to my own place downtown.

I know both of my parents are in agony at the thought of three of their children going off into the world.

I know this because even I am a little sad about it, and also because they've both mentioned it to me on multiple occasions, together and separately.

What is even more sad to me is that they are being so supportive and excited for each one of us, and for Asha and Yana going to high school and playing volleyball and doing all their stuff, when they probably still see us as newborn babies that still fit in the crook of one arm, a la Father of the Bride.

And who would DREAM of letting newborn babies go out into the big scary world?! Or 7-year-olds, 18-year-olds, 20-year-olds, and 22-year-olds, for that matter...

IV.

Growing Out

The original title of this post was some variation on "parting of ways." But of course I have come up with a way to spin even goodbyes into an upward twist.

It's not really spin, though. We're not outgrowing home or the family. The cool thing about family (and homes, the way we tend to conceptualize them) is that it grows with us. Unlike clothes; unlike childhood, for the most part. We're expanding our worldviews, but we're not ever going to lose the seeds that planted us in the world, and the world in us, in the first place.

As I am about to learn from the peaches and figs in the new "backyard," things that are planted require special tending and care. And, if properly cared for, they drop juicy, delicious fruit right into our baskets. And every season they drop fruit, and every season their roots reach out a little farther underground. The roots might crowd each other out (or crowd out the crepe myrtle) or they might fill up the garden box and start breaking through the soil and the walls that hold it in.

But instead of leaving destruction in their wake, they bring fruit outside the walls of the box, and they expand the box itself to include parts of the world that were previously excluded.

Everything we are doing is just part of the equation, another leg of our quest for the Giant Ring of Grown-Up Keys, each one of which opens another door and expands the world again. Everything that happens creates new reality, and the infinite new possibilities that come with it. Everything we do and everywhere we go and everyone we meet becomes a part of us, and we grow out and our family grows out and we are all the richer for it.


***
Speaking of people we meet becoming a part of us, and of heartbreak, we also found out yesterday afternoon about the devastating loss of a family friend. Please direct your thoughts and prayers, dear readers, to this family, that they may find love, comfort, and support now, and strength through pain in the days ahead.

wednesday night date night

You all know how much I love my routines. How they have formed so many important friendships (French toast with Mary every Wednesday morning since freshman year; wings/nachos/half-price burgers with the That’s-What-She-Saiders). How they keep me sane (my obsession with having a regular workout schedule). How they give me something to look forward to. All of these play a pretty huge role in my life as far as keeping me on the other side of the fence from dysfunctional.

One of my routines, though, has been getting me a decent amount of good-natured ridicule lately: Wednesday night date night.

My friends have mostly gotten used to the fact that I am never available on Wednesday nights. In fact, now that they are starting to date more, too, Wednesday night has pretty much become date night for everyone. Which is, of course, hilarious, given the months they’ve spent saying, “Every week?! Come on now,” and the months I’ve laughed back, “Gotta keep the fire alive, man.”

It’s a little upsetting that I have to schedule a regular date night into my week if I ever want to see my man. (Thus my plea for help de-nutsing my life.) But I got the inspiration from my parents, who are still together, and more than that, are still happy together after 25+ years of marriage. They’ve tried to schedule a weekly date night every week for twenty-five years. Wrap your mind around that, y'all. Especially in between kids, school, church, multiple jobs, moving, grad school, no jobs, moving… If they didn’t schedule time to “be in love” one night of every week, they wouldn’t have time for it. That’s the sad part, if you ask me. But it’s also indispensable. That's the way our lives are these days, in this culture. We don't have time to be in love, or even to get a grasp on what that means in the first place.

To get a slightly different angle on the topic, let’s take a jaunt back to my sophomore year of college, when I was a free agent and just figuring out what that meant. I met a guy named Tim at a pillow fight planned by one of the theater groups on campus, of which he was a part. He was interesting, and he thought I was interesting, and we ran into each other at the silverware station in the caf a few weeks later and I don’t remember quite what happened, but we made plans to hang out.

Regardless of how it all went down, we got together a few times just to talk. New friends-like. And then it was the end of the semester and we decided to go to late night breakfast together (St. Olaf’s best finals week tradition, in my opinion) and in our Facebook thread he said, “It’s a date.” And I freaked.

“I guess I should clarify,” he wrote back. “I’m defining ‘date’ as two adults spending time explicitly with each other in order to determine whether they are romantically compatible or if they’re better off just being friends.”

That definition changed my life.

Before Tim, the moment I agreed to go on a date was the moment I signed your freedom and singlehood away forever. Now? It’s time I set aside to spend with a specific person and to focus on our relationship. I do usually see Jason more than just on Wednesdays, but that’s the night we always know for sure we’re going to spend with just us. That consistency is super important. Especially since quality time is my top love language. You can tell I like you if I want to spend time with you. Pretty simple.

(Incidentally, it just occurred to me that my sister tells me she cares about me by sending me photo messages of things I said I wanted to buy, and telling me how much they cost in different stores or states. She also gives me hugs and says cute things, but I like figuring out the subtle ways we say that stuff to each other. That's love iRL.) (...in Real Life.)

On top of being a check-in point and a time to keep the fire burning, Wednesday night date night also forces us to come up with new and interesting things to do, to keep from getting complacent. This summer our Wednesday dates have got me to see The Italian Job and the Italian Festival, both of which I liked a lot; we’ve gone swimming; we’ve gone for sushi and beer and fro-yo; we’ve hit the mall and HIMYM; we saw Avengers, Rock of Ages, Wanderlust, and The Hunger Games; we went to the Delaware Shakespeare Festival to see A Midsummer Night’s Dream; he bought me my first ever Philly cheesesteak at Tony Luke's; and last night, we went to World Café Live at the Queen for their Grilled Cheese & Craft Beer Night. (The winning round, in my opinion was the Brooklyn Blast IPA and a swiss cheese with house-made duck pastrami on rye bread. A close second grilled cheese was the manchego with jerk chicken on caramelized plantain bread, and the second place beer was Victory Yakima Glory. Although now I'm second-guessing myself. Everything was SO, so good.)

Lots of delicious, hilarious, active, important, interesting things that we do together, sharing our old interests and stumbling upon new ones. I would like to be able to use any and all of those adjectives to describe my relationship overall, as well as the individual dates.

To top it all off, we were walking off the four to-die-for grilled cheeses and the peach cake and all the mind-blowing beers (I won’t tell you how many there were) up and down Market Street when a guy approaching us called out, “I can’t tell you how refreshing it is to see a cute couple walking out here.”

Keepin’ the fire alive, man.

weekender

OK, so you may have picked up on the fact that Delaware is growing on me. Despite my weird welcome (see August 24 to about September 24, 2011) to the state, there are actually quite a few reasons to like this place. Here's one: 

interactive version here

While Delaware itself doesn't have a whole lot going on as far as fun things to do, one of its major perks is its central location and general proximity to almost every world-famous city on the East Coast (New York, Philly, DC, Boston), not to mention big-name amusement parks like Hershey and Busch Gardens, and a lot of pretty critical American history. A year ago, Ann and I left left Sunny V around 11:00am, and six hours later we were still in Wisconsin. Now, I would have to very carefully plot out my route (in a general northwest direction) to stay in the same state for 6 hours. (That would be Pennsylvania, in case you were wondering.) In any other direction, I would almost definitely hit at least 2 non-Delaware states in 6 hours, if not more. When I went to Boston, my wheels touched five different states in six hours. Toto, we're not in Kansas/Nebraska/Wisconsin anymore!

Anyway, if you've been following the blog, you know the stories behind most of those little blue pins. Two of them, however, are new as of the last two weeks.

Last weekend Jason and I took some much-needed time off (what even is that?!) in Bethany Beach. Actually, this brings me to a misspeak. Delaware is famous for a few things: Delaware Park, the outlets at Rehoboth and tax-free shopping, Dogfish Head (still on my list, still untapped) (ha ha, untapped, get it?), and the beaches.

So we went to Bethany Beach, and it was FANtastic. We stayed at this adorable little boutique motel I found on TripAdvisor (a habit from my Casa Foch days). I think the guy in the office was a Midwesterner, but I never got a chance to ask him. Wherever he's from, he was very pleasant and welcomed us with cold bottles of water and some great recommendations -- notably, the Cottage Cafe, where we housed some delicious flounder and rockfish dishes with fresh asparagus, plus their special drink, a really beachy, pink, frozen concoction involving peach liqueur and champagne. AND, best of all, the most delicious Chocoholic Cheesecake of my LIFE. Not kidding. It was all I could think about for the whole rest of the weekend.

Well, I am exaggerating a bit there. There were a lot of wonderful things to think about for the rest of the weekend. Such as the beach itself.

We had breakfast at the Frog House, a really fun, lively diner right on the main drag. We had to wait awhile for service, but that was understandable given the hordes of gigantic families with 1-5 babies and children in tow. It's not like we were pressed for time! And if any of you ever vacation with me and I start dithering on about being pressed for time, PLEASE slap me square across the face!

We spent as much time as possible at the beach, in the water (which was full of what Jason called sand nits, like tiny sand-colored crabs that got into the lining of my bathing suit and tried to eat me as revenge for my recent seafood binge). The surf has been pretty wild this summer. Some of our group got rocked by waves at Rehoboth last month (and I still have a scar from the beesting on my wrist, if you wanted to know), and on Saturday at Bethany we couldn't even walk against the current, it was so strong. It was a little scary.

Anyway, because of rainstorms and Captain Jack's Pirate Golf we couldn't spend the whole day at the beach. Mini golf is a pretty important vacation activity, especially pirate "putt putt," as Jason calls it. (I put it next to "pirate" to make it sound even more ridiculous.) (Also I pretty much kicked his butt after the first 3 holes.) We escaped the rain by ducking off the boardwalk into Turtle Beach Cafe for local gelato, made by Gelato Gal, which also has a location near the outlets in Rehoboth. These are two things that are very exciting to me: local, and gelato. (NO, I am not a HIPSTER!) And let me tell you, the cherry gelato was some of the best I have EVER had. Way to go Delaware! And Gelato Gal!

(I'll tell you, we tried Maureen's the next day, which is on Garfield Parkway, and it was a disappointment in comparison. Sorry Maureen's, but I had just tasted the gelato love of my life a mere day prior.

Thrashers fanboy

But we had to try everything, right? Jason has a deep passion for Thrasher fries, apparently a Delaware beach classic. And yes, they are amazing.

Jason also had to check out Bishop's former Bethany Beach location, which is now called Java Llama even though the sign hasn't been changed yet. He almost got conscripted to work down there this summer before they decided to sell it, but let's just say I'm glad -- we're both glad -- he didn't.)

Outside Turtle Beach Cafe I saw a dollar bill stuck through the cracks of the boardwalk. I almost bent to pick it up, but Jason said, "Nope," and nodded at the stairs facing us a few yards away, where a couple of kids sat stifling giggles. Then I heard a giggle from beneath my feet, and the dollar bill disappeared.

Pranksters.

"Did you used to do that?" I asked Jason accusingly. He suddenly found something very interesting to look at in the sky. "...No..."

In the afternoon the rain really started coming down, and lightning + lifeguards cleared the beach, so we headed to the Blue Crab to wait out our parking meter with beers. It turns out the Blue Crab also has delicious fresh house-made chips, and pretty great calamari too. As you might expect, they do crabs, so our table was decked out in the telltale brown paper and roll of paper towels of a crab restaurant. But we weren't hungry yet.

For dinner that night we went to Armand's Pizzaria in Sea Colony, right around the corner from our hotel. (I got a kick out of the spelling painted on the side of the building; that's not a typo. Unfortunately it's also not the official name of the restaurant.) We got a deep dish pizza that we ate while packing up our room the next morning. It was really pretty good both times. Also, in the past I've found deep dish pizza to be a little too heavy, a little too much to handle... But this one was really good. I could still only eat two pieces.

We passed Griff's Bakery on our way to get ice cream for dessert, and Jason made me promise to get up early and go eat there. There was a help wanted sign in the window, and inside it was all dark and empty. Even the racks were completely bare.

And the next morning, once we had packed up our hotel room and checked out, we headed back to Griff's for breakfast pastries. We got the last two strawberry cream cheese puffs and they were some of the last options. Apparently this place just gets completely cleared out every day. And we still weren't early enough.

The guy who seemed like he was in charge apologized for the limited selection, but we told him we felt lucky to get anything at all! He was very friendly, and Griff's seems like a hotspot. I will say, though, if anyone wants to bake, think about baking for Griff's.

I returned to Wilmington with a swimsuit full of sand and a hankering to pet the kitty. Poor Stella had to hang out at home alone for the weekend.

While I was in Bethany Beach, I got a text message from my former podmate Anna Linn, asking if I was free the following weekend and would I like to go to her aunt and uncle's beach house in Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey.

Would I?! Despite the fact that it was my third weekend in a row traveling, and the last of a series of six weekends where I was home only one... I couldn't really say no! Plus I wanted to see her.

So that's how I ended up in the unlikely situation, dancing in a club on the Jersey Shore on Saturday night with one of the last people in the world I would expect to be doing that with: the infamous "Good Girl" of Pod 278 in Fall 2010.

We had such a good time, though; the Jersey Shore really knows how to do food and drinks. Not to mention the band came on to do a set and started with a cover of "Jersey boy" Bon Jovi. Let's just say the whole club was livin' on a prayer that night.

I won't go into so much detail since this is getting so long already, but in case you are ever in Point Pleasant Beach, I can't leave you high and dry! We had delicious meals at Wharfside, the Shrimp Box, and Tiki Bar. Wharfside has both patio and restaurant seating, and on Sunday afternoon they hosted a really fun "old stuff" cover band. They sang Journey. I'm good.

For dancing, check out Jenkinson's or the Tiki Bar.

More importantly, Anna Linn's family was so great. Her cousin Kate had a baby back in January, and Alex is now 7 months old and captivatingly adorable. Between them and their parents, the house had 3 dogs in it for the weekend, and I actually loved all of them! Making strides. It reminds me how much I actually like meeting new people. That's been oddly stressful this year, I guess because the stakes were so high, when I didn't know a single person in the state and had a long way to go to establish myself.

That being said, a year ago Wednesday was my first foot -- or tire, I suppose -- set in Delaware. I'm a few weeks away from my one-year anniversary of working my current job, which is so exciting. I'm days from signing on an apartment and being able to move in (knock on wood). I've covered a lot of miles, and I don't plan on stopping any time soon.

in thought, word, and deed

I got back from the beach on Monday and had a whole post planned out, but given the circumstances of the past few days, I need to write a different one.

I am thinking about people this week.

When I got back to my normal life, I found out that a Delaware friend would be out of town for a few days because her cat had to be put down and she needed to be at home.

Today, I received word that a friend of mine from college has been diagnosed with cancer. It sounds like he will probably make it, but the road will not be an easy one. And besides, we are 23. These things aren't supposed to happen to us.

A lot of things have been happening lately that aren't supposed to happen. Shootings, and mass shootings, and discrimination, and war, and robbery and assault and all manner of other things that hurt. These things hurt not only the immediate families or affected populations, but they affect the collective human psyche in potentially irreversible ways. These violences cause us to recoil, to curl up inside ourselves and put up our defenses and lick the wounds whose origins confuse us; why are WE bleeding and sore when it wasn't US who were shot? Why do we and our communities reel from the violences we commit against each other?

And then there are the hurts that are not committed against us by anything we can name -- like the cat, and the cancer, and other things we name in our hearts.

In these instances, we send out messages, beacons, to our mainstays and our loved ones. We ask for "thoughts and prayers." I always say I will pray in my own way, and regardless of any evidence of the healing power of prayer to one god or another, I think there is incredible power in Thought. I believe there is legitimate, nearly tangible power in thoughts flying in from all over the world, concentrating in exactly the place you need them most.

I went to Walgreens with a friend after Zumba tonight to look for a sympathy card. Most of them were awful. Lame at best. Most of them said to me, "I would feel bad if I didn't say anything to you right now, so here is my half-assed and partially thought-out clearing of the conscience." I know that I am unusual in that I HATE euphemisms, and I'm fairly comfortable with tears and suffering and depression and grief. The simplest thing that needs to be said is, at the core, "I care." I can't say anything more honest or more healing than that.

So I want to ask for your thoughts and prayers, dear readers, for these friends of mine, and for your friends who are undoubtedly also in need of thoughts and prayers, and for OUR friends. And for people at a few more degrees of separation. Thoughts and prayers do not run out like money or even words. Pain is one thing a lot of people share, and there is strength in sharing even pain. We can make ripples and waves in each other's lives, so, so simply. This I do believe.

routine recharging

It's 7:15 on a Friday morning and I am blogging. Already today I have:

• hula hooped for 20 minutes (which, according to the box, could have burned something like 600+ calories...?! Not that I count. I measure workouts by sweat and burn, and satisfaction)
• made coffee
• scooped out the cat's litter box
• fed said cat
• grabbed the mail which I forgot last night, and the remnants of balloons from Maria's grad party on Sunday
• closed all the windows according to my mom's "temperature + humidity" formula for keeping the house cool without wasting resources
• washed a few dishes
• put the fresh batch of granola I made last night into the giant plastic container we keep it in
• I also am eating some. I think it is the best batch yet.

The reason I have been up long enough to do all of these things goes back to my to-do list. I didn't know when I wrote it how big of an impact it would have on my life. I didn't expect to do so many of those things, or to do many other things by extension of it.

I'm up because, as I mentioned in my progress report, I started a pretty disciplined tradition of waking up early to go swimming every Monday morning. It has really been an energizing way to start the weeks. It feels so good, in fact, that I decided to start getting up early EVERY morning to work out. This week I've done swimming, running (still sore from this, it's been such a long time since I ran), yoga, hula-hooping. My main hangup on doing this is just that I haven't committed to anything by the time I wake up in the morning, so my alarm goes off and I think, "OK! I'm awake. What could I do this morning?" And then I lie there for 5-12 minutes debating with myself over different workouts I could do, or going back to sleep for another 45 minutes. So that is something that will change next week. I just have to plan.

I used to be a night person, or I used to call myself that, back in middle school/high school. I just could never fall asleep, so I would lie there ruminating in the dark for hours, and then wake up early for school and be cranky and tired. Except during swim season. When my days were full and I wore myself out. That, and the herbal tea of the destination, has become my cure for jet lag: touch down, sit down, have a cup of tea, go out and do stuff until a reasonable bedtime hour, and then pass out. Wake up the next day at a reasonable hour, and repeat.

This new routine has already changed my life in a few key ways. Exercising energizes me, so I start the day with a boost coffee can never give me. I'm much more focused and less restless all day. Even though I've been getting less sleep, I'm more productive and I have more stamina to keep it going until bedtime. It makes it harder to skip a workout. I have a whole evening to check other things off my to-do list. Until last week, I would get up and drag myself to work, come home, scramble to change into workout clothes, go to the gym, come back home and eat dinner, take a shower, and go to bed. And if I really needed to do something else in a week, or in a day, (which never happens, LOL) I had to skip working out. My stress level, thanks to this schedule, was sky-high.

My schedule still desperately needs pruning, but so far this week I have looked at a potential rental house, filled up my car with gas and my tires with air, gone out to dinner with my parents, written a long-awaited blog post, made granola, submitted a rental application, gone to Target (that shopping list has been in the making for a WHILE), packed for my trip to the beach this weekend, AND (drumroll) I finally wrote and mailed those letters that spurred me to write my to-do list in the first place! ...A month and a half ago. But I did it!

This is starting to sound a bit infomercial-y. I promise I'm not trying to guilt you all into making leaps and bounds in your lives. This blog is called second set of baby steps for a reason. We're walking blind here, and we have big shoes to fill, big dreams to fulfill. That's why any stride I make gets me excited.

One of the best parts about letters (though I could write at least one full post about what is great about them) is that the more you write them, the more you get them. I'm sure the correlation would be just about 1, if you plotted it out. And letters (or comments, emails, texts...) from you people are what make it possible to take baby steps, and what make it easier to take toddler steps and kid steps and angsty teen steps. And I'm sure they have the same effect going the other way, too. We've covered a lot of important ground in letters this year, and throughout my life. We've also covered a lot of ground in phone calls, which I have never ever ever made and picked up so frequently at any other point in my life. (I have a friend here in Wilmington who calls me to check in and chat about once a week, even though she lives literally 7 minutes away from me, even if I'm probably going to see her. It's weird how weird it is, but she'll leave me voicemails telling me just to call her back when I get a chance. No reason. No emergency. Just to talk. It's kind of cool. It's something I haven't done since I had curfews and since my parents could still tell me I wasn't allowed to go out.)

The great thing about letters, though, is you can go back and read them a billion times if you want, until they disintegrate. Whenever you have letters that you can touch, if there is something hand-addressed to you in the mailbox by a familiar pen (often the G2, in my case), you can never honestly bemoan your aloneness in the world. It just doesn't resolve.

Let me bring this back full circle. I usually have an idea for what I'm going to write about, and usually the post I imagined is not at all what I end up writing. Today I wanted to write about two things; one of them was my new routine -- again, partially to hold myself publicly accountable to keeping it up, and partially because I'm excited about it and it feels really good and I like to share good things that I am excited about. (Anyone who is my Facebook friend will know this all too well...)

Halfway through this post, I started to panic because a.) it always takes me way longer to write a post than I think it will when I start out, and I'm in danger of being late for work right now, and b.) I had NO idea how I was going to tie in the second thing I wanted to write about:

This is a picture of postcards I've been sent, most of them through the course of this year.
I pin them to the bare drywall in my basement and look at them every day and think,
"Man, am I lucky to have such cool friends who go to such cool places and send such cool postcards."
Man, am I lucky.

in relation to

So as you may have noticed I have hit another reluctant point on the writing cycle. This is mainly a direct result of the fact that I have hardly had time to breathe, let alone think, let alone sit down in front of the computer, in the past month or so. The cherry on top of this situation (perhaps not coincidentally) is that I also have about 1395756302 big things to think about in life at this moment. And no time, again, to think about them.

It all started with New Orleans. I mean, leading up to it I was totally swamped, I forget why, but I distinctly remember not packing until the evening before I left, because I just did not have time until then. I guess the weekend before that was the weekend Kristy and I went to the beach, and the weekend before that was Audrey's last weekend on the East Coast... So it makes sense. My week nights are all spoken for, consistently, filled with trips to the gym, to the gas station, to half-price nacho night on Main Street, to the couch to watch The Bachelorette (no longer! And happily ever after to Emily and one-F Jef!)

I was already starting to question the jam-packed-ness of my life before New Orleans. But then I experienced this amazing spiritual peace and fulfillment and inspiration on that trip, and returning home it was replaced by that ironic creeping anxiety of not being able to envision holding onto that peace upon returning to life as usual...

Service. That's something I didn't write about, that I wanted to write about after coming back from there. Service was a major element of the trip, with a full day set aside for service projects. Our service project? A historic walk to the New Orleans School of Cooking... to be served a traditional New Orleans meal.

Wait-- Our service project was to be served?

In the end, I felt we got far more out of the service day than most of the other groups, who spoke sometimes condescendingly about the "good work" they got to do "for the people of New Orleans." Maybe I just feel the need to justify how we spent that day, but to me it seemed they had completely missed the point. Service shouldn't be something we, as The Privileged, give to people who are "less well off" than we are; service should be a way of life, a social code, a way of conducting relationships. And it's not 100% selfless. How can we truly enjoy the food cooked for us if we eat it selflessly? How can we be sincerely, deeply grateful to the cooks if we have eaten too selflessly to enjoy, to taste what we are putting into our mouths? And how then can we hope to serve with any impact if we don't allow ourselves to know what being served feels like?

Honestly, I find it uncomfortable. And tapping into that discomfort, when I go to "pay it forward," is to me what makes service, on both the giving and receiving end, worth our while.

***

So this has been on my mind. Not that I had time to process it, seeing as I finished the week in a puddle, liquidized beneath the weight of too many things to do.

Kristy and Katy and I are looking at apartments, and hopefully moving into one by September 1st. We'll see what happens, as some really important things are thrown into cutting light. This brings into play finances; commitment; relationships; personality; taste; values. Some heavy shit.

More on that later. Right now I need to break down my weekend for you, so you can see how NUTS my life is. (Any tips on de-nutsing it, PLEASE let me know.)

This past weekend, I went to New York twice; slept in 2-3 hour chunks that did not total 8 hours in any 24-hour period; went to work on Saturday; and celebrated my sister's high school graduation. I know what you're thinking... There aren't enough hours in a weekend to fit all that stuff in.

Well, you're right. Fortunately I have the time turner.

Yeah, I don't really have that. But let's be real: What, out of those things, can I be expected to cut out? I went to New York on Friday with my family. And I had already committed to the work event, months earlier, not realizing it took place on a Saturday -- much less a particularly important Saturday for me to be out of town. It can be pretty critical to step up at work, to go above and beyond, especially for young professionals who are trying to establish themselves and show their commitment to a job and an organization. (The work-life line is a bit fuzzier, but I don't think I'm in any position right now to tackle that.)

But Saturday I went to New York to visit some old study abroad friends I haven't seen in seven years. It was a one-weekend deal. I pretty much had to go.

And it was so good to see them. It's strange. B's place, where we gathered, was a 5-story walk-up. Which I walked up, to discover B, Georgie the legendary Aussie in our group, and Gus, sitting on a terrace looking the same... But older.

We are adults now. We are doing adult things. Working. Going to med school. Buying houses. Looking for apartments. Traveling. Trying out things we could end up doing for the rest of our lives.

I laughed because all of Georgie's travel stories involved her either wingmanning some Swiss hostel-mate, or anti-wingmanning some Swiss hostel-mate. Gus is forging his way in a town void of denizens between the ages of 18 and 50, working in real estate, brewing beer at home, being responsible and eternally pleasant. Gus has always been nice to be around, at least that hasn't changed.

I was in awe of how closely B has stayed in touch with people in our class. She said, "I think I am better at long-distance relationships than in-person ones." And Georgie said, "I think I'm the opposite. I always say I'm like a bad cold. If I was friends with you, even just for a short amount of time, you're my friend for life. And I will most likely show up in your life 7 years down the line and say, what up!"

There are a lot of amazing people in my life, and I'm very, very lucky. I was so happy to touch base with these people, to connect. We are very different. I am very different. But there is something underneath that holds fast even after 7 years of falling out of orbit.

Speaking of amazing people in my life, I'm starting to dread the day, 3 or so weeks from now, when Thomas and Maria leave for Germany and St. Olaf, respectively. I think the family is starting to dread this day. Assuming my girls and me land an apartment, the house will be only half-full with my parents, Asha, and our Russian exchange student. Empty, in comparison to the usual household chaos.

Also amazing: my growing and morphing Delaware network. I just got back from our crew's biweekly half-price food Tuesday, and for the second or third week running we have a new person at the table! Scratch that -- tonight we had two! This is very exciting. And these people have been such a blessing and a windfall to me since November and counting.

It takes work, to maintain relationships after college, after we're not all housed within 10 minutes walking distance of each other anymore, or when my heart feels scattered across the nation. It takes work, and it takes patience, and there will be tears. But relationships, at least, are rarely not worth it.