Notes 27.02.10

The movers just drove away and left us with an apartment so full that we can barely walk around without hopping, tripping, or cartwheeling over boxes.  I walk into my new room and expertly maneuver around displaced furniture, storage containers, and boxes that are filled to the brim with who knows what.  Surveying the battle ground, I wonder. . . Where do I begin?

Leaning up against my window are all my picture boards and framed posters.  Okay, easy enough.  I pull them out, making sure not to bend any photos still pinned behind ribbons, and I think about every room that these frames have decorated.  From Coeur d'Alene to my first dorm room, all throughout college and even abroad.  They've lied dormant for a while, but now they're back again, breathing life into the walls of this new place that has yet to create memories of its own.

I rearrange photos and notes and cards, keepsakes that I've held onto for a variety of reasons.  And as I lean my first picture board up against the wall, I breathe a deep sigh of relief.  I know it sounds weird, but I suddenly feel like me again.  And its not that I let these photos and memories define who I am.  But instead, they help me remember those moments when I was the best version of myself, something I seemed to have lost in recent weeks.

Since moving back from Switzerland, I've been stuck in this "in between" time that leaves me feeling frustrated and annoyed at myself for not moving forward (which also coincides with my extreme lack of blog posts this month).  I know that I just got here and that I don't have to have everything figured out, but I've been living out this detailed mental picture I painted for myself years ago, and suddenly all the colors are swirling around into some abstract design that leaves me guessing as to what comes next.  After having a plan for so long, this not having one is throwing me into mental chaos.  What should I do today?  Apply for jobs here? There? Look for apartments?  What am I doing?!

And I know that I'm not the only one in this boat.  I know that like most of us in the just graduated club who are still searching for jobs (thank you economic crisis), I'm struggling with being thrown into a world where no aced test or ten-page paper will win me the grand prize.  I have to start living the questions that don't have right answers.  And instead of expecting some validation to show that the choices I made were the right ones, I have to figure it out for myself.

And it's funny sometimes when I look at the old things that I've written, papers and blog posts and the like.  I start laughing to myself.  I had no idea what I was talking about.  It's easy to be the optimist and write and think about life when you're in such a positive place.  I, of course, fall victim to the rose-colored glasses fairly often if you haven't already noticed.  Not to say that looking at the world that way is a bad thing.  But sometimes a little reality check is good to knock your perception back into focus.

I turn to look at the new and improved photo board pinned up on the wall next to my bed.  I am so incredibly lucky.  All those details and questions that seem to muddle up my thoughts are temporarily silenced, and I see myself clearly again.  I know that many of these moments caught on camera were not perfect.  I was stressed, sleep-deprived, and exhausted physically and emotionally.  But I was happy.  Really, genuinely, and honestly happy.  And I know that that happiness hasn't gone anywhere.  I just have to learn how to feel it again, especially when I'm alone.  Because as much as I would kill to live in the same place with all the people I love, to be overflowing with that indescribable spirit and energy that comes from being surrounded by those people, I know that won't realistically happen.

As I've heard my wise friend Sam say, just knowing that those people and memories and places exist is enough.  And I guess it has to be, at least for now.  That is until I can build my very own dream house by the ocean and all my loved ones can come live with me.  There will be hammocks and an infinite supply of wine and we can all live happily ever after with the sound of waves lulling us to sleep every early morning. 


Any takers?