I Fall in Love Too Easily

When David slips into the shower with me I almost burst into tears. 

I've just been diagnosed with COVID-19 and it feels like four hours after the test results come back, all the symptoms show up at once. I'm so tired I feel like I might just collapse on the bottom of the tub. My stomach is roiling and I've been coughing so hard my lungs hurt. 

"Baby," he asks, concerned. "Are you okay?"

I wrap my arms around him and cry quietly into his shoulder. 

"I'm so much better now that you're here." 

* * *

"I don't know! It's not one of those things you just say to people!"

"That is literally the dumbest thing you have ever said."

"Why?"

"Because you aren't 16. Do you think if you say it to the wrong person it'll lose its meaning?"

"Yeah, kinda."

I roll my eyes so hard I can practically hear it. 

"Look at me. I got married to the wrong person. I still loved him. I still love David now. It's not like I wasted all my love on my ex."

"Yeah, but that's different."

"How?"

"It just is."

"You're an idiot."

"And you're a prig."

"Well, that's settled. Whose turn is it to pay?"

* * *

When I was eighteen, a close friend of mine lived, at least during the school week, with my family. 

As far as I remember it, she came home with me one night after school, stayed over, and just lived with my family off and on for awhile. I had to shared a room with my younger brother (sleeping on the bottom bunk, no less), but that was the worst part of it.

We did, or (didn't) do our homework together. When things went south with our boyfriends we stayed up for hours talking. I learned how to tell when she was sleep-walking and when my older brother found out that I forgot to tell Mom about her birthday, he deep-fried her some mushrooms. 

She didn't have the heart to tell him she hated mushrooms and Mom was so mad she could have whacked me with a wooden spoon. 

Years later I was telling a friend about that part of my childhood and he asked "Weren't you jealous?"

"Why would I be jealous?"

"That your parents loved her as much as they loved you."

I still think about that conversation. 

* * *

I have never had a problem falling in love.

I like to joke that my closest friends are people that I've pined for over the years who never materialized into friendships. I've had some issues falling out of love over the years (dear god, the amount of time I cried over my high school boyfriend), but the falling for someone has always been the easy part. 

I'm always shocked when friends (in their 30s, no less!) claim to be unable to say "I love you" to a new partner. 

What on Earth do you have to lose?

* * *

I don't see a lot of people during COVID-19 lockdowns. 

It's been crushing on everyone, I know, but I'm really struggling a lot now that cold weather has pushed us indoors and made seeing friends impossible. 

I have one or two that are in our bubble and a few I don't mind regularly videochatting with and while it's not the same, it always helps. 

The day after I manage to wrangle a visit or have a particularly good conversation or David and I connect in a deep way I do the same thing. I take a special red china mug down from the cabinet. I make a cup of hot cinnamon tea and drink it while reflecting on and giving thanks for all the love in my life. 

Call it prayer or magic or good luck, but the love in my life keeps growing. 

* * *

David and I have spent over 6,000 hours together in a 600 square foot apartment. 

I still love him. 

It's one of those things that slightly surprises me when I think about it. Falling in love has never been a problem. I am profligate in declaring my love. I'm just not terribly good at staying in love.

See: My marriage that fell apart after less than two years. 

I hate sharing space with anyone. I need long stretches alone to feel like a human being. The only things I've ever allowed to share a bed with me on a consistent basis are my cats. 

It's not just that I still love him, it's that I'm happy with him here. My life is better with him in it and my home feels more like home with him here. He is calm and kind and keeps me grounded. I'm learning how to disagree with someone you live with and not have it be a three-day fight. He is the only one I want to see when I find out I'm sick. 

What matters most, though, is the feeling that love isn't scarce. It isn't something to hold onto a guard jealously against other people. There's room for love to grow in this relationship. 

And that makes every day worth a cup of hot cinnamon tea.  

Beginning

This apartment is different in so many ways.

To start, it's full of my stuff. My books, my art, and my mother's rocking chair are all out in the open again. Shelves of DVDs are not considered decoration. While it's certainly lived-in, it's also tidy and cozy.

I've only been here for a few weeks, but it already feels more like home than the apartment my ex and I shared for three years.

The biggest change is that there's music in the house again.

It's been over three years since I've been able to turn on an album without first having the check with my ex about whether or not it would overstimulate him. (it would) Or ask if he was planning to turn on television or a video game (he was). Or inquire about whether or not he wanted to talk about anything (he never did).

Granted, a lot of it is Patsy Cline, Billie Holiday, and with the occasional interlude into The Smiths when I'm feeling really awful.

It's a start.

* * *

Dating is a wasteland of human sadness. 

It's the same and not the same as it was before I met the ex. The apps are similar enough. The performative woke-ness is excruciatingly worse. Dick pics and gross men still abound. But I'm more comfortable with my sexuality and myself this time through. 

It's a long string of pleasant but not right dates until a friend introduces me to a friend. 

It is the perfect rebound relationship. 

Here's what makes it perfect. It's friendly and has some of of the best and most open communication I've ever had about expectations and sex and feelings. The conversations veer between flirting and arguing, and it's good to stretch those muscles again. The sex is intense and affirmative and helps me start to get over a lot of hurtful things my ex said. The bourbon is plentiful and high-quality. 

And when it's over, it's just . . . over. Friendly notes about Star Trek or careers occasionally, but there's no pining or long-term sadness.

It's a midpoint.

* * *

 I come home after a long and emotionally exhausting day to a clean house, reasonably calm and fed cats, and dinner on the stove. Amy Winehouse is on the radio singing the blues.

The new boyfriend is everything you'd want a new boyfriend to be. He's whattheheck silly and holyshit handsome and ohmygodareyoureal? kind. He tells me I'm gorgeous when I'm running errands in my old baseball hat and a grubby t-shirt. He tells me I'm gorgeous other times, too. He treats my parents to breakfast when they meet him. 

Every moment that I spend with him feels precious.

He gets me a glass of tea and does something to make me laugh. On the radio, Amy is singing about love being a losing game and in this moment, I don't even care if she's right. This doesn't feel like losing game. It doesn't feel like an ending.

It feels like a really good beginning.

Newlyweds

My therapist has started to cry.

I'm taken aback. It's something she's never done in front of me before. Not when I was describing being sexually assaulted, not when I talked about suicide and the plan I had a few years ago, not when I spent most of a session crying because I was so lonely and sad I didn't know how to get out of bed in the morning.

The husband has been coming in for a few sessions to understand some of what goes on in therapy, why I feel so shitty afterward, and ways he can help. It's been an odd experience, I think for both of us. The husband has been asked to weigh in on everything from how I handle anger (not well) to how I communicate.

Out of the blue one evening, my therapist asks us why we got married.

Hearing that question from your therapist, in a session, is unsettling at best. It feels like she has some super-secret therapy knowledge and is about to tell you that she doesn't think you should be married, or that one partner is holding something back from the other, or that she thinks you might be related.

At least, it feels that way to me.

We tell her. He tells her about how he suddenly discovered that daily life can be fun and weird with another person. I tell her that he is the most kind and generous person I've ever met. Eventually we're talking to one another and honestly forget that she is there. He tells me how much he loves my friends and I tell him that he pushes me to be a kinder, less judgmental person. I finally tell him:

"You feel like home."

That's when my therapist blows her nose, loudly, and we realize we're still in a session.

"I'm sorry," she tells us. "I do a lot of work in couples' therapy, and I tend to see people at the end of their marriages. It's nice to see a couple who's still so in love with one another."

***

Our first five months of marriage have been, well, a lot like the last two and a half years of being together. 

I'm not sure what I was expecting. Our arguments to be, if not magically solved, at least put on the shelf for a couple months? A musical to break out every morning when we wake up? A refusal to leave the house unless we were together? Sunshine and rainbows to magically shoot out of our asses all the time?  

The truth is our lives are very much what they've always been. 

We hold hands in the back of cabs. We fight, infrequently, but it's hard when we do. I still go to bed early while he stays up late watching B-horror movies. We text one another "Do you need anything from Target while I'm here?" instead of "I love you and am thinking about you." We Skype with out-of-state friends, plan and host day-long board game days, dance in the living room to Motown, snuggle the cats, crack one another up. The rhythm of our lives hasn't changed much. 

I find it comforting.

***

We're in a cab on the way home from a double date with some of our friends. 

We're saving for a house and recovering from a wedding, so we haven't been out much in the past few months. An occasional game night, a dinner at a friend's house, but few nights like this one. The ride home itself isn't anything special. Me, enthusing over the drinks we had, the couple we saw, my hopes about our future house. Him, holding my hand, talking about the dinner we're hosting next week, the couple he hopes to see soon, and his hopes for our future house. 

It's just an ordinary cab ride.

Or, at least, it is until we arrive home and the cab driver turns off the the meter and turns around to talk to us. 

"You two seem very happy together," he says. "You disagree about something and can just let it go. My wife and I argue a lot. How do you do it?"

We're stunned for a moment and don't know what to say. Before I can make a crack about us being newlyweds, he stops me to tell us that he has been astounded by our kindness and agreeableness, particularly the husband's. He remarks that we are obviously extremely happy together, and thanks us for being wonderful passengers to eavesdrop on. Eventually, as we thank him and get out of the cab. He stops the husband and says: "I am going to take some of what I learned from you tonight home to my wife. It's nice to see a couple so in love with one another."

***

Our first five months of marriage have been nothing like the last two and a half years together. 

We do many of the same things, but something fundamental in our relationship has shifted. Our arguments no longer leave me wondering "Is this going to be the one that splits us up?" We smile when "our" song from the Thrilling Adventure Hour Musical Episode comes on at home. I begin to work out again, and come home to a smiling husband, happy for his alone time, too.

There is an unanticipated weight to saying "This is my husband" and hearing him say "This is my wife." When I am angry or lonely, I look down at my wedding band and remember that there is someone who will carry some of that anger or loneliness if I ask for help. The rhythm of our life hasn't changed, but I'm surprised to find a harmony introduced. 

And while therapists sobbing and cab drivers telling us how wonderful we are are rare occurrences, I find them reassuring. Perhaps all the sunshine and rainbows I've been seeing lately aren't only coming out of our asses.  

Flat

For most of my adult life, there was something about being sad that felt homey.

You know, the kind of sadness that involves old time country music, a desire for rainy days, and a bottle of bourbon. The kind of sadness you can curl up with.

I always secretly loved that kind of sadness, and it often found me after a breakup when I wasn’t particularly interested in the other person. There was something pleasant about having license to keep to myself and not need to expend any emotional energy beyond, “Wow, I’m pretty bummed right now” and then drinking like my life was a Patsy Cline song.

To be clear, I wasn't seeking the kind of emotional emptiness that finds you during a depressive episode. It was the kind of sadness that could eventually be lifted by a sunny day or a long run or an A on a paper I had written.

The self-indulgent sadness was an emotional state that I pursued and reveled in when I could get it just right. And “just right” usually meant “going through a breakup with a person I don't actually call back” or “regretting that one-night-stand with the ex who just broke my heart.”

It was the kind of sadness that was addictive.

***

The fiancé and I were in a fight that felt like the Second Labor of Hercules.

He and I fight infrequently. So infrequently, in fact, that when we were dating I wondered if our relationship wasn’t passionate enough (hey, we all have our own shit). And usually when we do fight it ends in us going to bed and waking up to have a rational conversation the next day.

This was not one of those fights.

It was the sort of fight that went on for days, and when we finally cut off one of its heads and thought we were all right, the next day would find me sobbing on the couch over something different.

There were a lot of tedious reasons it was so hard (ineffective communication, a desire to be the Right and Reasonable One in the relationship, new medications that were causing mood swings, blah blah blah). But it was hard. Harder than anything we’ve done together in the past two years.

The hardest part was I was unprepared for the intensity of my anger. There were days when I would be talking to my best friend and shaking with rage. Whether it was a function of new meds or wedding stress, or finally having feelings again after a year of depression I can’t say. And, truthfully, I didn’t examine what was going on too closely. All I knew was I was angry and one night found me angry enough  that I started packing a bag to sleep on my best friend’s couch. As I stuffed pajamas into my bag and looked for my earrings for the next day, I heard the front door open and the fiancé talking to the cats. I deflated and asked myself:

“What the hell am I doing?”

He found me sitting on our bed, crying.

***

Prior to the fiancé, all of my relationships imploded between three and five months.

Some were my fault, others weren’t. Ultimately they didn’t work out because we would fight and I would give them the finger and go sit in my home wishing for rain and listening to Hank Williams. They ended because I didn’t care enough for them to continue.

And there was something comforting about those endings. The emotions were one-dimensional and soothing in their flatness.

Now, with the fiancé, it’s never just one emotion. It’s joy with aggravation, love with happiness, anger with sadness and frustration and fourteen other feelings I can’t identify. They are confusing and crazy-making and what had me packing my bag to sleep on the best friend’s couch. I’d lived so many years with flat, straightforward emotions that I was utterly unprepared for emotional complexity, especially the kind that combines love and anger and frustration.

Unprepared actually doesn’t even scratch the surface.

The night I was packing my bag, I was angry beyond any anger I’d ever experienced. Of course I was.  I’d spent five days distilling sadness, distress, and frustration into something flat and easier to deal with. Rage is so much more comfortable than sadness. When I heard the fiancé’s voice at the door, I realized that I didn’t want to be flat anymore. When he came in and sat down next to me, I told him everything. He listened—he listened for a long time while I told him every emotion I was having and all of the ones I couldn't identify and how complicated everything was for me at the moment. We talked, and all of those stupid, complex emotions found a voice.

The funny thing is that even when I was sad and leaning waaaaaaay into it, it wasn't as satisfying as it used to be. No amount of Johnny Cash or Sam Houston whiskey brought back that feeling of pleasant self-indulgence or even the comfort that it used to bring. Rather than being a flat, understandable emotion, sadness was huge and complicated and made me feel so awful that it was hard to make it through the day without crying at my desk.

Instead, the rush of relief I was seeking came after talking and listening and apologies from both of us, when I went to bed with a glass of water, some music, and, well, him. He put his arms around me and kissed my hair and told me he loved me. One of the cats jumped into bed and headbutted me. Still a little sniffly, I closed my eyes and said out loud "Yes, this is home."

Crone Island

I storm into the living room, scoop the cat off of my fiancé’s lap and without saying a word, head back to the bedroom.

“Hey, where are you taking her?”

“We’re going to Crone Island.” I announce, imperiously and without explanation.

I slam the bedroom door.

I was first introduced to Crone Island when Kerry pointed me toward and article on Emotional Labor and its subsequent Meta Filter. Crone Island is a magical island filled with all of your best ladyfriends. There are whiskey rivers, weights without Bros monopolizing the squat rack, cats that like to snuggle, romance novel trees, and Buffy The Vampire Slayer Marathons.

And unicorns. Lots of unicorns.

In real life, Crone Island is located at the intersection of my best friend’s liquor cabinet and the sympathetic, exasperated noises a group of women can make when comforting a woman whose boyfriend has just accidentally called her fat. It’s the place where you go to forget (for a time) that you’re in a relationship and have to take someone else’s feelings into account.

That’s the more innocent part of Crone Island.

The truth is that it’s also a fortified city with genetically modified alligators in the moats and She Wolves prowling the parapets. It is an emotional retreat, the place I go to when I’m too angry or frustrated or tired to engage in my relationship(s) like a grownup. Crone Island is where I don’t have to do the emotional labor of being in a relationship.

I’ve spent a lot of time in this part of Crone Island.

Which is the part of my personality that I am ashamed of, that I hide from almost everyone. Okay. We all have our quirks that we hide and goodness knows I have a tendency to overshare. Awkward dancing? Here’s the playlist! The fiancé’s flexible relationship with time? Groused about to my best friend over Saturday brunch. The terrible fight we had three months ago? Collapse on closest couple’s couch accomplished. What I rarely discuss (and probably should) is the rapidity with which I can do disconnect from our lives and our relationship. It’s a throwback to exes who weren’t very good to me, to parts of my life where it was easier to be a Vulcan than a person.

While I know that this is No Way to Live and The Number One Thing You Can Do to Make Your Partner Hate You, I still do it. Frequently. Because there is still a vocal minority in my brain that believes it is easier to be alone.

Over the past months, that vocal minority has gotten a lot louder. I find myself in one of the most challenging and stressful moments in my life and my easiest coping mechanism is flight. Since January, I’ve changed depression medications, we’ve both changed jobs. We’re planning our wedding and fundraisers and have been generally pretty busy without a lot of time alone. For two introverts it was a recipe for bickering and hurt feelings, and I found myself gathering up an indignant cat and running off to Crone Island most nights of the week.

While I was snuggling the cat behind my mental fortifications, I would worry. Constantly. About how unfair I was being to the fiancé. About how he should be able to be with someone who could actually be with him. About how fucking scary it is to be in love and spend most of my time being in love and vulnerable. I snuggled the cat closer and wondered if it would be easier just to run away with her for good. I smiled a little when I thought about how the fiancé would be angrier about losing her than me. It seemed so much easier than continuing to let him in close enough to hurt me for the rest of our lives.

Sunday morning I got up and went looking for the cat to head back to Crone Island to think. When I found her on the living room couch I realized that the cold we thought she had was more serious than we had realized. I shouted for the fiancé and we loaded her up and took her to the kitty ER and we lost her. All in about three hours.

That evening I was crying like a four year old. “I. Want. My. Kitty,” I sobbed on the fiancé’s shoulder. “I want her now. Who am I supposed to take to Crone Island?”

“Maybe you don’t have to go.”

“You’re missing the point!”

He wasn’t.

Beyond the accidentally cruel comments and small hurts that are part of any relationship, there is the deep knowledge that someday this person is going to be gone. And I know, conflating putting down the cat and thoughts of the fiancé dying sounds a bit, I don’t know, insane. But the reality is that until she died, I did not realize what Crone Island was really for. The flaws of that reality have come sharply into focus over the past week. The best-friend, whiskey river, kitty snuggle parts of Crone Island are all well and fine. The drinking tea and bitching about a flawed recycling system are okay, too. The walls and hiding from our relationship, not so much.

I’ve stayed away from the Island for the week. I’ve cried while washing up the cat’s dishes and putting away her food. I’ve laughed remembering the inopportune moments she jumped up into our bed. I’ve curled up in the fiancé’s lap and cried and told him that the thought of him dying scares me so badly that I have to fight the urge to run away from our relationship.

And while it’s not whiskey rivers and unicorns, it’s not GMO alligators and She Wolves either. It’s a quiet space where we can be loving and vulnerable, amused and annoyed, frustrated and supportive with one another. While it isn’t as punchy as Crone Island, it has its own name that I like an awful lot.

Home.

Surprising, Expected

The boyfriend gives me an engagement ring on Christmas Day.

It is both surprising and expected.

We've been referring to one another's families as "future in-laws" for months now. We've talked in detail about our eventual wedding. We have two person dance parties in the kitchen. He's seen me through job transitions and family arguments. We've been angry at one another and made up and moved on.

When we go to tell our friends that we're engaged, one will nearly knock over a waiter after jumping out of his chair to congratulate us. Several will cry. A few make me cry while telling the story.

I feel like I have never been as happy in my life.

***

The cat is meowing and pawing at the door.

I've barricaded myself into the book room. It's mine in a way the rest of the house isn't. It has all of the comforts from my old apartment. The antique wing chair where I curl up and read. The rocking chair my mother bought when she first moved out on her own. It has all of my books and the rug from my house. 

It also has the cat box. 

Normally it isn't a problem, but the boyfriend and I got into an argument the night before and I'm angry enough to retreat to my corner. And I'm angry enough that I've closed the door, turned up the radio, and am pretending that I'm back in my studio apartment in St. Paul, living the life of a single lady again. 

The illusion sticks, at least long enough for me to get control of my breathing and blood pressure. 

Then his voice from the living room "Can you let the cat in? She needs to use the box."

Just that request sends sends my blood pressure shooting back up again. I crack the door open and stomp the three steps back to my rocker. I am fully aware that I am being a petulant, shitty partner, but I'm not even remotely close to being able to act like an adult.

I feel like I have never been as angry in my life.

***

"Will you sing to me?"

It's not long after a panic attack has left me shaking and unable to breathe. I've scratched the skin off of my right hand, one of a new, super-great bonus set of symptoms I've recently started exhibiting. I've spent most of the day sleeping, just trying to get some space in my head.

And despite napping most of the day away, we've gone to bed early (at my request). I'm so done in that the prospect of staying awake past 9:00pm seems impossible.

Anyway, I ask the boyfriend to sing to me frequently. I like his voice and it's a nice way of falling asleep.

I feel him nod. While he's nodding my already burned out brain starts on an exhaustingly familiar awful loop.

I love him. I love him more than I knew as possible. But some day he'll die and then where will I be? I'm always going to be exhausting and anxious and a mess. This is me when things have been going well. Why would I inflict this hot-mess-ness on someone I love? Isn't it better to let him find someone better? 

Of course, all of those tedious, repetitive thoughts (and about two dozen more) take about a second and a half, during which time the boyfriend has cleared his throat to get ready to sing.

It's a Foo Fighter's song we both love. It's one of the songs we dance to in the living room and one that's just somehow right for both of us at the same time.

I start to cry.

I feel like I have never been as certain in my life.

Plural

"Well, I mean, Kelly is plural now and we have to start taking that into account."

I start laughing and end up with beer up my nose. It's been a really long week, and I'm--we're, I suppose--hanging out and having pizza and beer with one of my old roommates. She's tired and a little frazzled, talking to her husband about how we need to see one another more often and the difficulty of coordinating schedules.

After coughing the carbonation out of my lungs I say: "What a funny way of thinking about it."

She shrugs. "I always thought it was kind of nice."

***

I'm going to be sad to see 2014 go.

It feels like a selfish sentiment, given the general fucked up-ness of the past twelve months. But the truth is that grim global realities aside, 2014 has been the best year of my life. 

Independent of the whole ohmygodLOVE thing, this year has been fantastic. I celebrated a year in the Twin Cities, packed suitcases, took cross-country flights, and crossed finish lines and things off my  my 30x30 list.

This has been a great year. 

Here's the funny thing. 

All of those things felt really good. I love marking things off of to-do lists and travel is always deeply satisfying. 

That's not what made this year wonderful. 

During the course of the past year I've felt less and less like I was waiting for the bottom to drop out on me. Work has felt manageable, my family is healthy, I live in a city I love surrounded by people I cherish. Things feel more stable now than they have in a long time. Until this weekend, I had a really hard time pinning down what, exactly, was so different about 2014.

***

I'm happy. 

That's it. There are no qualifiers or addendum to the statement. That's what changed in 2014, and it's such a simple thing, I feel like I should be embarrassed that it took me so long to figure out. But I spent so long with depression and anxiety that I forgot what it felt like to live without them. And even in the process of getting better things were still kind of bad. But over the course of the past year, my worst days have become roughly equivalent to what my best days used to be. 

Happiness has stopped feeling tenuous. 

Partly, I expect, from therapy and sorting out any number of things that I had repressed for awhile. Partly from learning triggers and healthy coping mechanisms and any number of the other tedious grown-up things you learn to do in therapy. Partly from falling in love.

Being plural has a lot to do with it. 

Not just the simple being plural of being in a couple, but the complicated, beautiful, crazy feeling of having a group of people who love you and have your well-being in mind, people who bring you pho when you're sick, let you cry on their couch when you're sad, celebrate your successes and milestones and let you be a part of theirs.  

They make happiness feel like maybe, this year, it might be permanent. 

Some Conversations, with Family

"C'mon, Kels. I want to drink wine and make doughnuts."

"Oh. That sounds like fun!"

I should know better than to trust my mother. Halfway through an incredibly finicky recipe, I push my flour-filled hair out of my face, spin around, and see her contentedly drinking a glass of wine at the kitchen table.

"Hey! I thought we were supposed to be making doughnuts together!"

She laughs. "By "making doughnuts together" I really meant "I'm going to read the recipe out loud to you and drink wine while you do all the work.""

I take off my apron, grumbling, and remove my scarf. "It's too damn hot in this kitchen." I observe, twisting my hair up out of my eyes. These days I'm wearing it past my shoulders and it gets in the way of almost everything. As I'm fussing with the last pin, I look up and see my mother snickering.

"What's so funny?"

"Well, Kel." Her eyes are sparkling. "Bite marks are just so retro, don't you think?"

I remember why I've been wearing my hair down all day and blush. She cackles.

***

"What are you doing with that?!"

"What?" I've picked up a power drill from the workbench and am carrying it out to my car. 

"What are you doing with the drill?"

"I got new plates for my car because Minnesota makes no sense. I'm going to go put them on."

"Put it down!"

I've never been very good with power tools, but for goodness sake, this is the limit.

"Daddy, I am perfectly capable of . . ."

"I know. But the tools here are all pretty greasy and you're in good clothes." He snatches the drill from my hands and gives me a half hug. "I don't want you to get gunked up. I'll do them for you."

"Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine." 

On the way out of the shop I take a deep breath and think about how the smell of Lava Soap, engine oil, and diesel will always remind me of my father.

"Kel!"

I turn around. "Yeah, Daddy?"

"I mean, I also don't trust you to use it. You do call it an electric screwdriver."

"That was, like, six years ago."

He raises his eyebrows to indicate that it doesn't matter. I roll my eyes to indicate he's out of his mind.

***

"You look like hell."

"Well, you know." He gestures to the infant, snuggled up in my lap. "Newborn and all. We're not sleeping much."

"Yeah. Mom says he's fussy between eight and midnight?"

"Yup."

"What does "fussy" mean?"

"It means he screams his head off from eight until midnight."

"What?"

"He cries. Just cries."

"For four hours?"

"He's a baby, Kel."

"How have you not, you know, left him at a local police station?"

He just stares at me. "You're never baby-sitting. You can take him for a weekend after his 21st birthday."

"I mean, I was joking, but I think we both know that until he's capable of verbalizing, it's probably not a great idea." 

"Yeah, it's almost like I suffered through years of having you as a baby-sitter."

I snort derisively. "It wasn't that bad." 

My snort wakes up the baby, who immediately starts bawling. I pass him back to his father who gives me a "see what I mean" look of exasperation and retires to the rocking chair. 

30x30 #1 Run a Ragnar

A little over a week ago, I ran a 12 person, 205 mile, 30 hour relay race.

Ragnar Napa Valley was really what drove me to write my 30x30 list. It was going to be the crowning jewel of the list, the capstone to everything I did.

Yeah, the list is only about one third finished. 

I've checked off some big things that I haven't blogged about because, well, because I haven't blogged about them. I saw Hamlet live. I directed a 5K. I gave away my copies of books that changed my life and I accomplished random acts of kindness (normally in the form of baked goods). I'm giving myself until January (when I wrote my list last year) to finish the rest of it. There are things that are unlikely to happen (Century Ride, duathlon) and things I'm really looking forward to doing (best friend road trip to South Dakota, visiting the World's Largest Ball of Twine Made by One Man, hearing the Minnesota Orchestra in Orchestra Hall). 

But Ragnar was really it for me. 

One of the biggest things I wanted to do with the 30x30 list was pick things that were fun, challenging, or places where I could grow. 

Ragnar was all of those things for me. 

There are a lot of things in my life right now that are challenging my ability to write, and write well, because the sheer enormity of the experience or the emotions is hard to capture. So here's Ragnar, in brief. I learned what it means to be a team captain. I ran across the Golden Gate Bridge (Bucket List Achievement Unlocked!). I relied on strangers and watched as they turned from people I met on a San Francisco street to teammates I was excited to see at the exchanges. I found out that I'm tougher and stronger than I knew. I discovered what it means to have someone at home say "I've missed you" and mean it.

More than any of those things, though, Ragnar reminded me that I have a home.

Let me back up. For months now, I've been looking at job postings in other places. I've had the itch to move, mainly because I've rarely stayed put for this long. I was anxious and getting ready to bail, because if I didn't bail, I'd never be happy.

The dumbest part about that whole thought process?

I was happy.

Not annoyingly, disgustingly, ridiculously happy, but just happy. Content. Pleased with the direction my life was going. So, of course I had to move. Because it was possible that annoying, disgusting, ridiculous happiness was waiting for me at some other point of longitude and latitude.

Trust me, I know.

After a lot of long conversations with Kerry, I managed to calm down and resign the lease on my apartment. I told myself I would give this place another year and I was going to San Francisco in a few weeks, a city I love and a place where I've considered moving many, many times. It would be enough to get the travel bug out of my system and I could find out if my love affair with the West Coast was still a thing.

So I booked plane tickets and Air BnB rooms. I bought and broke in new running shoes and made a Wonder Woman costume. I counted down days and racked up miles. I argued with my running partner and listened while he sang me Justin Timberlake. I dreamed of Golden Gate Park and seafood.

And, meanwhile, in my real life, I got an amazing performance review at work. I met someone. I went to birthday parties and had long heart-to-hearts with my best friend. I made art for my walls and unpacked the last of my boxes.

When I landed in San Francisco the city was everything I remembered, everything I loved (a little hotter and dryer, no doubt). And I wandered Golden Gate Park and went to Muir Woods and walked next to the ocean and ate seafood. I ran Ragnar.

It was amazing.

And the whole time I was there, the Midwest poured out love and support via phone calls, texts, emails, and Facebook. I received a "kick Ragnar's ass" gift that made me melt. My Midwestern teammates, used to my emotional reactions to things, rubbed my back and insisted the team stop for chocolate milk at the end of my long run.

While I ran along the Golden Gate bridge and through Napa's rolling vineyards, I reveled in their beauty and the ability to do this difficult thing and be supported by people who love me. I kept myself going by thinking of all the people back in Middle America who were cheering me on. I made it up those final hills thinking about my job and how much I love it (also about how I will be a prairie runner FOR LIFE).  When I watched my running partner finish his final leg, I got excited about all the races and trips we have in store for us.

If Ragnar made me realize that I'm stronger and tougher than I thought, California forced me to realize that the Midwest made me that way.

Put another way, I love you, Minnesota.

Or, another way, see you next year, Great River.

Midwestern Girl

"Today," I say, pausing to take a bite out of my corndog, "is everything I wanted it to be."

"You really are a Midwestern girl at heart, aren't you?"

"What the hell does that even mean?"

We're walking around the Minnesota State Fair. I'm happily eating a corndog and drinking lemonade, on my way to see the butter sculptures of Princess Kay of the Milky Way. I've been relentlessly, ridiculously cheerful the entire time we've been here, no small feat considering I've spent most of the past week really down.

"For all your love of big coastal cities, for as much as you talk about the West Coast in particular, you're just so damn Midwestern."

"Yeah. Again. What does that mean?"

We detour into the Horticulture building so I can talk to the beekeepers and see if I can identify the queen in the display hives. I charm the beekeepers with equal parts erudite questions about bees and hives and sheer, unadulterated enthusiasm. When we get to the crop art section of the building, I literally clap my hands and jump up and down when we see a picture of Nikola Tesla made out of grain.

"That's what I mean." He answers my question from half an hour earlier.

"Exuberance is the antithesis of Midwestern." I retort.

"Nah. That's not what I mean. I mean, well, a lot of things. Mainly that when you love something, it's unironic and intense and maybe just a little bit weird. And that you love, well, Midwestern things. Corndogs. Lemonade. The sound of Canadian geese migrating. Scott Fitzgerald. Winter."

"I honestly don't know if I've been complimented or insulted, but if you really want to see me love something, we should go get some cheese curds."

We go for cheese curds. We see the Butter Princesses. We talk and laugh and get stopped by an impromptu parade and listen to a marching band arrangement of Fireworks, which prompts a long, funny story. We marvel at the paddlefish in the DNR exhibit. We eventually say goodbye and he heads one way to his moped and I walk to the transit hub and board a bus home, ruminating on something Fitzgerald wrote in Gatsby (have I mentioned how it's my favorite book?). Nick Carraway, reflecting on the summer and Gatsby writes:

I see now that this has been a story of the West, after all--Tom and Gatsby, Daisy and Jordan and I, were all Westerners, and perhaps we possessed some deficiency in common which made us subtly unadaptable to Eastern life.

The quote's been rattling around my brain for most of the summer. Time during which my private writing has consisted of me muttering about being discontent, distracted, and dissatisfied. There was nothing concrete to complain about, just a vague sense that settling here in the Twin Cities was, well, settling. That I've never done anything or been anywhere. Prior to now I've never lived anywhere for longer than nine months without actively scheming to go somewhere new and try something different and (trust me, I know how batshit crazy this sounds) spending this much time without being dissatisfied is making me dissatisfied. I spend a lot of time wondering about Gatsby and Nick and Daisy's subtle unadaptabilty to Eastern life, and wonder if I would be the same.

The discontent is something that I only discuss with Kerry. I spend an entire Sunday afternoon spilling my guts about how I'm worried I'm settling and that I've never done anything. My every instinct is to bolt, to pull up my stakes and head off to Boston or Seattle. When my landlord slides my lease for the next year underneath my door, I run for a paper bag. Kerry reminds me, gently (in the way of really lovely friends) that perhaps I've spent too long pulling up my roots, that staying is the uncomfortable, difficult thing for me.

So it's more likely I'll learn something if I do. 

My 20s have been about bolting, about learning to leave bad relationships, bad jobs, bad cities. Those lessons have, literally, saved my life. However, they also made me terrified, well, of things being right. I spent most of my 20s unhappy, either as a result of other people (aforementioned bad relationships) or because I was slowly going crazy. Happiness still feels a bit like walking on ice at the end of March. I'm reasonably certain that it'll support me, but it every creak and groan leaves me anxiously counting the steps until I get to the shoreline. 

I get off my bus a few blocks from the Mississippi and take the long way home, thinking about what, if anything, it means that I loved the Fair unironically. That I look forward to fresh squeezed lemonade and long, lazy summer afternoons on the boat. That I can't wait for autumn and anticipate winter with the kind of eagerness that would horrify my fellow Minnesotans (still a little shell-shocked from three Polar Vortexes).

Maybe it means I would be subtly unsuited for life on the coasts. Perhaps it doesn't mean anything. But for the time being, I'm going to trust that it means that I should be content to be content, and learn to trust the ice under my feet. 

And eat more cheese curds. It definitely means eat more cheese curds. 

Theme/Variation

I'm in a mood.

If the tightness of my shoulders or the noise my teeth are making grinding against one another weren't enough to alert me to the fact that I'm a little off, the fact that A State of Wonder isn't calming me down is a pretty good indication that I'm pissed.

Listening to Bach has always been the auditory equivalent of a warm bubble bath and a glass of wine. My heart rate slows, my breathing deepens, my shoulders relax, and my jaw unclenches.

Except when it isn't.

When Bach can't calm me down it means that my feathers are significantly ruffled, as they seem to be today. I don't know if it's the result of the woman next to me at my 6am Spin class who wouldn't stop moaning (Seriously, you're having too much or not enough fun. Either way, please dial it back a bit.) or the fact that I spent most of my REM sleep last night either screwing my exes or running away from serial killers in Disney World, but I am in a mood. 

Nah. That's a lie. I know the reason.

I've been having a lot of conversations about love and dating recently. The recent revelation that OK Cupid has been screwing around with its users is part of it. Having a bunch of recently single friends is another. A great deal of wine has been downed, tears have been shed, and terrible dating stories have been shared. I've actively listened as people have dissected their dating lives and have dissected my own. The stories change a little bit, but the themes of love, commitment, and family run through all of them. 

Usually, it's the kind of conversation I go for, but hand to God, if I hear one more story of a bad date or have one more person suggest that I try OK Cupid or go out to more bars I will go blind. 

***

"Yeah, you're a few standard deviations away from Midwestern normal." She pauses, and I can see her smirking. "But you're not an outlier yet." 

I'm curled up in bed with a cup of tea and a videochatting with a close friend. She's a fellow born-and-raised-in-fly-over-country. She's trying to talk me down from the edge of an honest-to-goodness panic attack (my first in well over a year). I'm wigging out over the prospect of going back to Wisconsin and sitting at a baby shower with about thirty-five Midwestern women.

Sounds innocuous enough, right? 

Or rather, sounds innocuous enough until you realize you're the only unattached (one of a few unmarried) women in the room, definitely the only one who has no kids, no plans for kids, no significant other, and no plans to ensnare a significant other. 

Put another way, the spinster auntie. At 29. 

It's ridiculous. I know it's ridiculous and that I shouldn't care about it. Truthfully, most of the time I don't. But most of the time I'm somewhere aside from the itty-bitty upper Midwestern town that I grew up in. When I'm living my life in the Twin Cities (a life that I love and wouldn't consider trading for a husband, kids, and white picket fence ever), there are many, many variations on love, commitment, and family.

In a town of 1,200 people? Not so much. 

It's the prospect of coming face to face with that  kind of stoic (antiquated?) Midwestern sensibility that has me breathing into a paper bag . 

***

"So, I mean, I guess if I were to be dating someone I'd want to date someone I'd see really intensely, you know, over the weekend and then just go back to doing my own thing for the rest of the week." I pause, waiting to be excoriated, told this is not how grown-ups do relationships and you're commitment phobic and need to seek therapy and listen to me I'm wiser than you are. 

Instead I'm rewarded by a huge laugh and a "Oh my God. We are totally related."

The only conversation I've had about love and dating recently that hasn't left me researching monastic vows has been with my older brother. The conversation winds on for a long time and touches on everything to how our family makes me feel like a spinster to how dating culture is inherently kind of creepy. Eventually, after a long lull, I tell him what has me disgruntled with every other conversation like this I've been having. 

I'm pretty happy being single. 

I have a job that I like, friends that I adore, I keep busy doing things that I enjoy. And I would like to have someone to take on adventures and have all those giddy ohmygodI'mtotallyfallingforyou feelings and of course I'd like to be having more sex (although, past relationships being any indication . . . well, nevermind) but it's not a priority. Or it's not enough of a need to make me want to go back to online dating or shitty, creepy dating culture at all. And it's not wanting it that is making me feel a little bit crazy, that's causing me to wonder if maybe there isn't something broken that I need to have fixed. 

It's the damndest thing.

It makes my older brother start laughing again and I can practically hear him rolling his eyes as he reminds me that yes, I'm a touch unusual for this part of the country but that if I lived near him, or in any major coastal city no one would think twice about it.

Translated from big brother speak? 

Stop being so goddamn neurotic. 

Or, put another way.

There can be many, many variations on a theme (quit being so goddamn neurotic). 

Say That

My older brother is laughing so hard he sounds like he's choking.

Our family has a strong aversion to talking on the phone, so we don't talk to one another often, but I always enjoy myself when we do catch up. He's the only member of my family I allow myself to be bitchy and sarcastic around. He has a real capacity to make me feel less like the crazy black sheep of the family and more like . . . I don't know, but I always feel better after we've had a conversation. 

I've just let fly with the most sarcastic thing I've said all week, the sort of thing that I would never ever say around another member of my family, the kind of thing that might actually give me pause if I let it slip in mixed company. 

"Just do it," he eventually manages to spit out. "Just once, say that." 

***

I don't like going back to Southeastern Wisconsin. 

I love the state, I love my family, I just don't like making the trip back to Mom and Dad's house. It's a long, tedious drive, and when I get there my folks are inevitably working or getting ready for a major holiday or doing something around the house and I don't get to see them or we end up arguing because we're all holifrazzled. Any friends I had in the area have either moved away or have kids of their own now. I hate, with the heat of a supernova, going for runs in the country. 

I much prefer when they make a trip to Minnesota or we meet one another at the cabin. I like when I can show them the city I'm living in, introduce them to my friends, and generally demonstrate that I'm a successful, happy adult. 

When I go back to their house I become . . . unimpressive. I forget that I am a successful, happy adult and revert back to the quiet, polite, painfully withdrawn kid I used to be. 

***

"That . . . was brutal. Efficient, well conceived, well executed. If you don't mind, I'm just going to go bleed out in the corner." 

One of the things I love and appreciate most about the people I am close to is the fact that I don't feel like I have to pull any punches. The above was someone's response to a (apparently) particularly well-aimed verbal cut. I am momentarily chagrined, afraid that this time I really did let my sarcasm and love of protracted verbal duels get the better of me.

When he assures me that No, really, it was fine. Your ability to skewer people is actually rather impressive it occurs to me that this moment is emblematic of my close relationships, of the reasons I have chosen to care about the people I care about. 

***

"So, Kelly, anyone special in your life?" 

From the time I get south of Madison until the time I cross the border back into Minnesota, I am asked this question approximately 532 times. 

The family members who ask it are, I think, well-meaning enough. But it's one of only two questions they ask. It's never "I heard you're sitting your comprehensive exams, what's that like?" or "You mother told me you're training for a twenty-four hour relay race, what made you decide to do that?" or even "Are you going to catch a Brewers game while you're in town?" Nope. It's invariably: "Is there anyone special in your life?" or, equally frustrating, "When are you going to settle down and start a family?" 

Inevitably my answers are "No" and "Not anytime soon" when I really want to respond with: "Well, I just got an IUD, so I wouldn't count on a baby shower invite anytime soon." 

It's the kind of smartass reply I wouldn't hesitate to make to my friends or my older brother, but it's something I couldn't shouldn't say in front of my extended family. It's the reason I hate going back to Mom and Dad's. I rail constantly about how much I hate being buttoned up and I'm never a stiffer, more guarded, more repressed version of myself than when I'm back in Southeastern Wisconsin. 

The funny, smart, mildly crazy girl who blogs about her sex life and can reduce a grown man to tears with a carefully aimed coup de grace? 

She's in the corner grinding her teeth, getting drunk, and tapping her foot impatiently. For years I've stuck her back in that corner and told her to just sit down and be nice. 

She's the one my older brother is encouraging me to let out of corner, to finally introduce to my extended family. 

And for once, I'm actually considering it. 

Crash

Mom and Dad think that I'm lonely.

It's nearly midnight. Mom has collapsed on my bed, Dad is sitting in my armchair drinking a beer. They've driven up from Wisconsin to spend the weekend with me. I'm about to throw a big event for work and they wanted to be here to support me during it.

Yeah, they're pretty sweet sometimes.

We're having the conversation we always have when we get together. They, having had roommates (usually siblings) for all of their unmarried lives and then having one another, cannot fathom why I choose to live alone, and how I've managed to live alone so long.

They're surprised, and try to hide it, that I've managed my anxiety over the coming event, my normal work schedule, my volunteerism, my social life over the past month.

Mainly they're surprised to find that the apartment is clean and I've managed to feed myself.

"Don't worry," I observe. "I'll crash hard on Sunday."

***

"Sweetie? Kels? Hey. . . "

I sit up with a start, wiping my face and eyes. "I'm here, I'm here. What is it?" I squint at the laptop, wondering why it's still in bed with me.

"You fell asleep."

It takes me a minute to realize that my Skype session is still open. We've been having trouble finding time for one another recently, and despite being flat-out exhausted, I refused to cancel.

"Was my mouth open?"

He laughs and my heart breaks. Again. "You were also snoring."

"Shit."

"Don't worry. It was actually really sweet."

"Oh, shut up. Snordorable is not really what I'm going for. What time is it?"

"11:00."

"I should hang up." I yawn. "I have an 8:00am and then a 12 hour day."

"Glad to see you're taking it easy, and making sure to take care of yourself."

I snort and answer without thinking. "That was supposed to be your job."

"You're the one who left."

I wrinkle my nose and he knows he went too far.

"I'm sorry."

"I gotta go. Early day tomorrow."

I hang up before he can say "I miss you." 

***

I wake up with gritty eyes, a pounding head, aches all over, sweatily wound up in the sheets. I squint at my cellphone, even that tiny bit of light hurting my eyes. 4:00PM. On a Sunday. 

This is not a hangover. Well, not really.

I've spent most of the past few weeks coordinating an event. It was busy, there were lots of moving parts, and I slept very little during the time period. It was also the kind of event that required me to be extremely social and outgoing. About 72 hours ago my inner introvert just sat down in the corner and started to cry. I kept running on fumes, finished the event, came home, and crashed. 

I groan, push my hair out of my eyes, and start hunting around for my bathrobe before I remember that it's in the laundry basket, with about three weeks of clothing that I haven't been able to get to the laundromat. My hair is damp so I start looking for the towel from my shower and . . . nope. Left it in the bathroom. Exhausted, I wrap the sheets around myself and stumble for the kitchen. 

The fridge has some cold press coffee, half a pack of Sugar Free Red Bull, a beer, and some hot sauce in it. 

The cupboards and freezer aren't much better.

I've dated, I've loved men who have wanted to take care of me. Who waited at the door with a three course meal. Who ran a hot bath of us at the end of an an excruciating day. Who wanted to be at the finish lines of my races, text me jokes in the middle of the day when I'm stressed, accompany me to nonprofit events and crack jokes and charm my peers.

I left them. I left them because . . . well, I left them because I left them. Because (among other reasons) at twenty-two or twenty-five I wasn't ready to be taken care of. I wasn't ready to have someone who knew that I (somehow) manage to sleep with my mouth open and snore, lightly, when I'm exhausted. I was hung up on the idea of independence, of being able to take care of myself. At thirty it's not that I regret those choices, I don't even know if I would make different choices if they were presented to me today. 

But right now, wearing a sheet, standing in an empty kitchen, debating whether or not I can skip dinner with seven loads of laundry in the closet,  is where I start reconsidering my choices. 

Every Damn One

Somewhere during the first few weeks that he gave me a bucket.

We were still very much in that light-headed, breathless, noyouhangup period of the relationship. I've always liked that part. He swore he couldn't believe his luck. I swore that I couldn't believe I'd let him see me naked. I walked around with a permanent smile on my face. He texted me well into the early hours of the morning.

Then, the bucket.

We were dressed up and about the leave my apartment for dinner and a concert. Time had sort of slipped away from us (what can I say, I'm a real sucker for a skinny guy in a suit) during the course of that slow afternoon, so I was puzzled when he stopped me outside the car and made me close my eyes and hold out my hands.

He put a bucket into them.

"What is this?"

He smiled his crooked smile and if my hands hadn't had that bucket in them, I would have pulled him back into the house, reservations and Bach be damned.

"You know. For when you bail."

Retrospectively, it wasn't very funny.

***

"Let's move to Chicago."

It's a text I send Michelle while I'm walking home, a little drunk, extremely tired, and unbelievably maudlin. 

Mental illness is a funny thing. I just had a fantastic night. Wine, cornhole, and long conversations with friends in the backyard of someone's new house. It's dusk, it's warm, the city actually smells like jasmine and roses, and I'm walking home through my city, the place that I love beyond comprehension and I never thought I'd want to leave. 

But, in that moment, I do want to leave it. 

I send the text because at this particular moment, I'm pissed at myself. It feels like I've never taken any chances, that I've never made the kinds of stupid mistakes you're supposed to make in your 20s. I've done some interesting things, but none of them feel like the kind of knock-you-out accomplishments that I thought I would have by 30. I'm still single, I don't even have a dog, my job eats up most of my time, and I'm nowhere close to having a down payment on a house. 

That's not what has me pissed and sad. That's not why I'm texting Michelle about moving. 

***

I still haven't seen the final season of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

It's not because the writing in the final seasons is less good than it was at the beginning. I didn't stop watching because I found another show I like better. God knows it isn't because I have less free time.

I don't like endings. 

***

With the exception of my first boyfriend, I've ended every one of my relationships. 

Every. Damn. One. 

And sure, I sentimentalize them when they're over. I cry, drink, listen to Patsy Cline. I gain break-up weight, run a half marathon (seriously, how do I manage to do both?), try everyone's patience. 

I still ended every damn one. 

I don't like the idea of being left, of being the one who trusted too much or loved too deeply in the relationship. As a result, the second things are less than ohmygodyou'resoperfect I take off. Then I drink. And cry. And wonder but what was wrong with me? 

As if I wasn't the one ending things.

***

The night that I text Michelle about moving to Chicago was tricky.

It was the first time I realized, really realized that my life is on the cusp of some intense changes. Friends are likely to start moving to the suburbs soon. The couples I know are planning to have kids in the next few years. The people I love are getting promotions and settling down.

They're moving on. 

And while I know (the non-lizard part of my brain, that is) that I'm not being left behind, it sure feels that way. Despite being promoted at work, crossing things off of my 30x30 list, despite the fact that I am living a life I love and in my rational moments wouldn't dream of trading, the panicky, unwell side of my brain is busy screaming:

They're going to leave you. 

So I text Michelle about leaving, about ending all these relationships before things change, before people leave me. And I walk home a little drunk, extremely tired, and unbelievably maudlin.

And when I walk in the apartment, and put my shoes in the closet, I see the bucket that ex gave me all those years ago. 

Every. Damn. One. 

Air and Space vs. The Northern Lights

Thomas Jefferson, NPR, and The Library of Congress have conspired to make me cry at my desk.

There's a NPR piece on Thomas Jefferson's personal library and its sale to the Untied States. A number of his original books were lost in a fire and the Library of Congress has spent a significant amount of time trying to buy original copies to replace those that were lost. The story is about how there are books that they were unable to find. It's the books that they were unable to find that starts me crying.

A quick look back at my journal during my visit to D.C. in September confirms that I did, in fact, start crying while visiting the exhibit they talk about in the NPR piece, and for the same reason.

Actually, a quick look back at my journal entries from my visit to D.C. confirms that, in fact, I spent very little time there without crying.

Yeesh.

Anyway, the second the reporter starts talking about the exhibit I close my eyes and think about the Library of Congress and how I can remember, distinctly, what it felt like to stand in front of Jefferson's books and Lincoln's speeches.

More than any of the other trips I've taken, that one sticks out in my mind. I don't know if I was drugged out on history and jazz, woozy over actual public transit, or just sleep-deprived and a little loopy, but I never thought I would enjoy traveling alone as much as I did. I was relaxed and happy in a way that I had not anticipated.

I liked the person I was while I was there.

***

I'm spending a lot of time looking at plane tickets. 

I didn't take my normal winter/early spring trip this year and I'm starting to get a little nutty. By a little nutty, I mean that I can't stop thinking about going on a trip. It's a case of working too hard, being too busy, not making enough time for myself. Also of spending most of my vacation days visiting family. 

At this point I don't really care where I end up, as long as its somewhere I haven't been before, and that I get there before September. I love the feeling of waking up in one city and falling asleep in another. It's a little piece of magic that has never gotten old for me. More than that, I love the feeling of exploring a new city, of sitting in its bars listening to music, wandering through its museums, eavesdropping on its public transit. I love imagining my life there and deciding whether or not it's a place I would love to live (Seattle, San Francisco, Boston) or where I would punch someone in the nose two and a half minutes after unpacking my boxes (Portland).  

It's part of the vacation fantasy, isn't it? The idea that you could start over somewhere else and be a better, different version of yourself. 

***

Over the weekend I end up in a discussion about whether or not the Twin Cities are a destination. I'm strongly on the side of "Yeah, maybe for the Midwest" and I'm quickly met by resistance. Of course it's a destination. We have great museums, a fantastic park system, ridiculously good food and beer. Our Cities rival anywhere! 

I won't quibble with any of that, but I still don't think of the Twin Cities as a destination. I've never heard anyone who lives outside of the Midwest say "Hey, let's fly to Minneapolis for the weekend! I hear The Butcher & The Boar is phenomenal!" (Although, seriously, that place might be worth the flight alone.) I love living here and will defend my choice until I'm blue, but the fact is that the things that make me love living here (94% of us live less than six blocks from a park, one of the country's highest literacy rates, one of the healthiest and happiest states in the union) aren't really things that would make you want to visit here. When I think about things and places to visit, I think about mountains and the ocean, the Freedom Trail and Jackson Square. I don't think about the birthplace of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Prince. 

Perhaps the coasts just have better marketing. 

***

About  three months ago, I was invited (encouraged) to apply for a job in D.C..

You could have knocked me over with a feather when I got the phone call. A friend of a graduate school acquaintance was looking for help getting his nonprofit off the ground and apparently my relentless self-promotion paid off (albeit, a year late), as the grad school acquaintance gave him my contact information.  

I got off the phone giddy. It had just snowed twelve inches only to dip into Polar Vortex #2 and the roads froze so badly that I couldn't leave my house. My skin looked like an alligator wallet. New York and Boston would be just a short flight away! I could go to the Library of Congress whenever I wanted! I could volunteer for my favorite national nonprofit! I could finally cross hiking Shenandoah off my bucket list and ohmygod think of how much closer I'd be to Civil War sites! 

If there's one thing that could make me consider leaving Minnesota, it would be proximity to historical sites. 

The giddiness lasted approximately two and a half minutes, or until Michelle texted to say that she has pulled up and it's time to go to brunch. 

"Oh shit," I realized. "My whole life is here." 

My friends, my family, my professional connections are all in the Midwest. I'm more comfortable in a boat in a pair of paint stained jeans fishing for panfish with my dad than I am at an expensive nonprofit event. I make a pilgrimage to the Mississippi Headwaters every three years to recharge. I love to swim but am petrified of the ocean, and I worship at the altars of Garrison Keillor and F. Scott Fitzgerald. How could I give all that up? 

At the same time, there's the part of me that wonders about Parallel Universe Kelly. The Kelly who lives in a bigger city, who bolted from fly-over country as soon as possible. The Kelly who gets to hear string quartets in the Smithsonian and spend her weekends tramping around historical sites. Surely there's still time for that kind of an adventure, and why not now, while I'm still unattached and my life is still flexible? 

It's the Air and Space Museum vs. The Northern Lights. 

In the end, I called the Executive Director back and said that I was flattered, but this wasn't the right time. It was, I suspect, the right decision, but during the intervening months I haven't been able to stop wondering if I made a mistake. And it's now it's not just the Air and Space Museum vs. The Northern Lights, but the JFK Library, Lower Queen Anne, Shedd Aquarium, and half a dozen other cities I've traveled to and adored. It's all of the places where I've loved the person I was while I was there jostling for their turn to pair off against the Twin Cities.  And I don't know how much longer the Twin Cities is going to reign supreme or even if that should worry me. 

I do know that next year I won't skip my winter trip.