Indications that you are going through a quarter-life crisis (in no particular order):
1. You quit your job.
2. You quit your job without finding another one first.
3. You break up with your boyfriend of two years.
4. You plan to move to Los Angeles, California to live with your best friend since first grade.
5. You pay to ship your 1994 Honda for the price of the car.
6. You plan a trip to Vegas to make twenty dollars into five hundred.
7. Nothing seemed to make sense anymore, so you decided to move somewhere where nothing will continue to make sense.
8. You trade in Route 29 traffic for smog and real traffic.
9. You hope the west suites you.
10. You finally feel like you are getting somewhere.
My apartment is half-packed, ready to get up and leave Charlottesville and move out to Los Angeles. There's a debate on what to take: my favorite red bookshelf doesn't fit in my car or but the banjo will fit just fine in the backseat. I'm realizing how much stuff I actually have. How many clothes I don't wear. And what I've worked for in the last year seems to grow blurry. Because even though LA may not have the answers I'm looking for, just continuing to seek them out makes me feel good about things again. There's only so much complaining and feeling stuck that I can deal with before I decide for a change again.
In less than two weeks, things will be different. I'm flying out to the west, and trying not to think of all the practical things but of the experience. Things will fall into place and I'm hoping for an adventure. I go through different stages of anxiety where I think that I am crazy for doing this, and that I'm not actually moving out to LA but just talking about it. Then I know I will get on a plane and just be there.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Off to the Windy City
I'm off to Chicago tonight for friends and relaxing...
And new destinations await as soon as I figure something out...
Sometimes, you have to make things happen yourself and get out of situations that are just not right or good for you in the end. Even if it's not practical. With risk comes reward...
And new destinations await as soon as I figure something out...
Sometimes, you have to make things happen yourself and get out of situations that are just not right or good for you in the end. Even if it's not practical. With risk comes reward...
Thursday, July 12, 2007
In Limbo
So I generally don't enjoy touristy things. Hip-packs and maps are not my thing. If I am lost in a city that I am visiting I will stubbornly wander around before getting out a map just so that I don't look like a tourist. And if I do break down and get a map I try to act like I just moved to the city or town. When I first moved to Boston and gave someone directions, it made my day. It made me a part of that city.
When my friend and I were in Nashville we went out on Broadway Street, which is one of the touristy areas. The bars were full of musicians doing covers of real country music. We tapped our cowboy boots and drank beer all night long. The band's we saw kept asking everyone where they were from. My friend would shout out "Louisville!" to which I gladly complied. Even though we were in one of the touristy areas, things still felt genuine.
Like any vacation, it left me feeling restless. Should I invest more of myself in Charlottesville? Is this somewhere I really want to spend my mid-twenties in? Should I move closer to friends who have their own lives elsewhere or move to somewhere completely new while I still can?
I spent the week of the fourth hanging out with different friends up in Boone and Beech Mountain. The view from my friends house is amazing and we watched all the fireworks; tiny up against the broad mountains. Each morning was coffee and hanging out on the porch...
When I was in middle school my two best friends and I used to walk down to the candy store and buy jelly beans. We used to take the flavors we hated, throw them into the street and say, "if a red car hits my jelly bean then I will get a boyfriend in the next two weeks." Every so often a red car would run over my butter popcorn jelly bean and I would think for a couple of minutes that my wish would actually come true. As if my fate was held in these jelly beans and the color of each car that passed over it. Because we wanted those things to determine what happened in our lives instead of actually making it happen. It was easier that way.
I am beginning to think that everything in life is about timing. And that we are all just shuffling around and waiting for things to begin to settle down. At least, that's how I feel. And when I was leaving yoga class yesterday and a woman asked me for directions, I initially didn't know the street she was asking for. But when she described it to me, I knew exactly where she should go. I even knew a short cut.
When my friend and I were in Nashville we went out on Broadway Street, which is one of the touristy areas. The bars were full of musicians doing covers of real country music. We tapped our cowboy boots and drank beer all night long. The band's we saw kept asking everyone where they were from. My friend would shout out "Louisville!" to which I gladly complied. Even though we were in one of the touristy areas, things still felt genuine.
Like any vacation, it left me feeling restless. Should I invest more of myself in Charlottesville? Is this somewhere I really want to spend my mid-twenties in? Should I move closer to friends who have their own lives elsewhere or move to somewhere completely new while I still can?
I spent the week of the fourth hanging out with different friends up in Boone and Beech Mountain. The view from my friends house is amazing and we watched all the fireworks; tiny up against the broad mountains. Each morning was coffee and hanging out on the porch...
When I was in middle school my two best friends and I used to walk down to the candy store and buy jelly beans. We used to take the flavors we hated, throw them into the street and say, "if a red car hits my jelly bean then I will get a boyfriend in the next two weeks." Every so often a red car would run over my butter popcorn jelly bean and I would think for a couple of minutes that my wish would actually come true. As if my fate was held in these jelly beans and the color of each car that passed over it. Because we wanted those things to determine what happened in our lives instead of actually making it happen. It was easier that way.
I am beginning to think that everything in life is about timing. And that we are all just shuffling around and waiting for things to begin to settle down. At least, that's how I feel. And when I was leaving yoga class yesterday and a woman asked me for directions, I initially didn't know the street she was asking for. But when she described it to me, I knew exactly where she should go. I even knew a short cut.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
In a Backyard Somewhere in Charlottesville, Virginia
The fresh breeze detergent at your apartment doesn’t
even smell like a fresh breeze
I know because my friend once tried to put up
a clothes line in her backyard
One of those circular ones that spin in the wind
but she didn’t dig the hole deep enough
and it just collapsed under the weight
of her wet clothes
And they fell all over the ground
scattered like popped balloons
deflated and flat,
those little helicopter things stuck in the sleeves
Disappointed that even now the real thing
can’t exist
or never really existed to begin with.
even smell like a fresh breeze
I know because my friend once tried to put up
a clothes line in her backyard
One of those circular ones that spin in the wind
but she didn’t dig the hole deep enough
and it just collapsed under the weight
of her wet clothes
And they fell all over the ground
scattered like popped balloons
deflated and flat,
those little helicopter things stuck in the sleeves
Disappointed that even now the real thing
can’t exist
or never really existed to begin with.
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
I have a friend who when he travels makes lists of what he sees to remember for later...
Staying where you grow up. Kentucky vs. Virginia. Nashville trip. Ew Mf. NASHVILLE! Buying cowboy boots buy one get two free. Touristy yet welcoming. Where are you from? Upright base player and stomping our boots at two in the morning. Churchill Downs and betting on two horses. Missing routine. Reading. Too late at night phone conversations. Drive to Boone through Knoxville and Johnson City, Tennessee. Missing at the airport. Green and trees. No real traffic. Counting state license plates. Alaska and California and Iowa. Feeling more like myself. Florida tourist drivers. Friends in a cabin off of 194. No open pool tables at Murphy's on a Monday afternoon. Neko Case and Dwight Yoakam. Black Cat burritos and PBR pitchers. Hanging out with my old college roommate and her husband. Cafe Portofino. More traffic. Feeling disconnected. Sleeping on a couch in Villas. Cool breeze through the window at night with trucks passing by. Waking up to a rescued kitten crying. Mel's Diner. A move to Charlotte. Upcoming plans. July 4th on Beech Mountain. Espresso News surrounded by the internet surrounded by mountains.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
