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.