I've made a mistake.
I can't do this.
I want to go home.
All of my favorite springs slowly wash through my memories. I'm
standing in the kitchen, grasping to hold onto an intangible thing: a
feeling of calm, the beautiful sunlight, the smell of cedar and
pavement.
I started off in a kind of holding pattern; three months into a job I
wasn't taking seriously; knowing it was time for <i>something</i> but
not sure exactly what.
I channeled my boredom into yoga and macrobiotics. I made a weight
loss bet with C. I cooked an insane 7 course meal for valentines. The
world continued to spin.
And then in late February a casual phone conversation with my mother
turned into an honest-to-god plane ticket to NYC.
I went into SXSW knowing it was probably my last year, and I was bored
as shit (as usual). My morning jacket DID rock me so hard I couldn't
hear right for a week, and that was with earplugs. The film fest
highlight was having to awkwardly sit through the opening of
Forgetting Sarah Marshall with Jason Segel standing right next to me.
In May I visited NY and subsequently decided to move. I got promoted
the day I got back and took the job (somewhat guiltily) anyway. Summer
was a blur of getting ready: both doing Austin things for the last
time AND preparing for my new life.
My brother got married somewhere in there and my niece had her first
birthday party.
On Aug 31 I left, I really really left.
I got the job I wanted and I moved into the apartment I wanted. I felt
all those cliché things... Like I was finally really truly alive, etc.
My grandmother passed away in early October. My mom called me when it
was time and I had to try and sum up a whole life's worth of love and
gratitude in a few sobbed sentences. At her funeral I felt her there
and felt released from grief, but I still miss her every day.
The day before Halloween a train wreck of a new friendship came to
it's ugly conclusion. I was depressed about it for a month... So my
birthday and thanksgiving passed without fanfare. I started hanging
out with work friends. I pulled myself back up.
Then on December 2 my mom went into the hospital, and the world
stopped spinning.
I spent most of december in an ICU room, hanging on every mechanical
breath. They told me I would lose her, and I became an adult. The next
day she woke up.
I came back to NY having fully been put through the emotional wringer.
I celebrated christmas with work friends and made some bad decisions.
I finished out 2008 with a lot of regret.
I welcomed the new year with cascading balloons and confetti and my
morning jacket covering kool and the gang. 'Twas perfect.
My wishes for 2009 are simple:
To be healthy and happy
To not take people for granted
To live a life I am proud of
To be free of regret
And the big one--
To welcome 2010 as a grown-up; a real live woman
