Hello. Hi. Hey.
Greetings from the other side of the country. Finally.
I truly am a stranger. Metaphorically on this blog, and truly in this place I haven't lived in for over 10 years.
It's been a handful of a few months. Jokingly my horoscope even was correct, and mercury was in retrograde, then it wasn't and whoa. Ish happened.
This place feels foreign to me. October, that time when I posted last, was a while ago, but emotionally feel like a lifetime ago. There is a laundry list of change that occurred, some of which is still sinking in even for me.
While I could say I'll take time and create a bunch of posts about each change, I know I won't. I know I'll be lucky to be back here in another 6 months, so laying it out on the table will be the only way to utilize this space to preserve the memory.
I moved. Closed the DC chapter in my life (almost, there is apparently still an epilogue going on). I have a new routine- I wake up super early. I got to ski almost every weekend last winter. I drive a car to the grocery store frequently and don't dread it. I even bought a new car!!! I frequently go outside and feel genuinely lucky to be alive and taking in the view. I am going to be someone's wife. (!!!) I eat way less. I do laundry more frequently. I am making progress on a cross stitch project I've had for 12 ish years. I visit my friends in Seattle. I see my family every day. I feel like the piece of me that I had been looking for ( we are talking flipping couch cushions, emptying your purse, retracing your steps level of looking) was finally found, and it was right where I knew I left it all along.
Closing the chapter of DC in my life is/has been/will be strange. Bittersweet, and emotional. Perhaps writing about it will be cathartic, as I still lie in bed some nights in wonder and shock about what I did. But I am proud.
Oh, so proud that I took the step for me.
But there it is. I don't recognize my life from the one I had just a few measly 10 months ago.
I realized that it took me so long to make this move, because I felt alone. Which sounds crazy. It looks ridiculous when I type it. I have a loving and supportive network of friends and family- but I think it really came down to me being able to express feeling miserable in DC, but beside myself, no one truly knew, or will ever know, just how incredibly painful living there was for me, but me.
In hind sight, being here, I know no one will ever understand. But I also know now that I was never alone. No one could know my exact thoughts- but the people in my life knew what I needed, and helped me get here.
I'm still working on readjusting some things in my life. Perhaps that has been the biggest change of all, learning to see me, and to trust that what I am feeling and thinking is ok and just as perfectly normal as it is going to get. I struggle with hiding behind work still, and putting down roots, and being honest and vulnerable with people, but this biggest change of finally putting myself somewhere were I don't feel like a fish out of water was a huge step in clearing the way for me to address those items and start to focus on them.
So there it is. Almost 365 days of my life wrapped up into a post that probably doesn't do any of it justice.
Did I mention I am ENGAGED?!?!
