Enough to Make you Misty Eyed

Thing I will Miss about Massachusetts: Part Deuce

Every day as I make the long trek to and from my office, I would take a shortcut off of 1A and drive down Revere Beach, right next to the ocean.

In the morning, I watch the sun glint off the water like a thousand diamonds. I watch the ice float towards the shore. I slow down. I don't care if I'm late. I roll down the windows, even when it is only 17 degrees, just to be that much closer to the water. You can taste it in the air. I like to feel the wind on my face, see the early morning people walking down the boardwalk, by themselves, with dogs, with each other. I wonder what their jobs are. I breathe.

At night, I feel the tension come out of my shoulders as I drive along the beach. The worst of my commute is over. I am almost home. During the summer, I watch the yo-boys with their car stereo's blasting, sitting on their cars with milkshakes, trying so desperately to look cool. I breathe in the scents of summer, sunblock and ocean and ice cream and fried food.

There were winter storms when I drove by and saw waves bigger than any I have ever seen. There was a foggy, raw, fall evening when the fog pressed so close that it seemed there was no ocean, no world beyond my car. So many moments of sunshine and peace, driving by the ocean.

It is my moment of zen, no matter the season.
I will miss the sea.

Procrastination

Well, the landlord is showing our apartment, so I can't actually be there right now. That would be awkward. So I thought, "why not break out the old mac and take it down to the Gulu... drink something other than alcohol for the first time in three days... maybe write a little...". But I'm lying to myself. This is all just an elaborate excersize in avoiding packing. And I am the queen of procrastination.

Lunch Lessons

Well, today is the first day of my last week as an employee of my current job.  And where I expected to feel elation, freedom, relief and release-- I actually found myself feeling a little melancholy.  A little blue.

Today, for the first time in months, no one wanted to go to lunch with me.  Usually, (for some strange reason) I am the popular choice for lunch excursions.  I think because I have a car, go to good places, shower daily, and am not totally creepy.  Indeed there have been times I have had to turn people down, as there was simply no more room in my car.  But today, all my friends had forgotten me, they are making new lunch plans with each other.  

I went alone to Whole Foods, which was my daily sojurn when I was first hired.  The salad bar was my friend.  The flower section was my garden to wander through and have a few moments respite from the clients, the coworkers, the Russians.  

I believe in the cyclical nature of life, the way things return to you when you need them to, when you need reminders.  Perhaps, life needed to remind me today that already, it is starting to go on without me at my job, in Massachusetts.  This state, this job made its mark on me, but I may not have left a lasting impression on it.  And that's ok with me, I am surprised to realize.  I do not want to be remembered for my amazing work in pre-tax benefits, or PROTECTING THE ENVIRONMENT.  Already they are moving on, as am I.  

Perhaps the funniest thing of all for me to consider today, as I drove the familiar streets and got my familiar salad, went in my usual line, beat the pesky short green light, avoided that annoying pothole-- was all this familiarity.  The topography of my life for two years suddenly changing.  

I am a cancer, born in July.  But I was due in June, (I was late in birth as I am in life) so I just missed being a Gemini, and I think that duality is a bit of who I am.  As a cancer, I crave stability, I want a full fridge; to know where I'm going; safety and security and family hugged to me like the endless blankets I love to collect.  But there is this other part of me that can pick up and move to Vermont- that can throw away things I've owned for years, that craves simplicity and cleanliness and emptiness.  That thrills on not knowing.

And I found this duality today, as I pouted through my lunch hour and drove my familiar streets.  

Moving to Vermont thrills me. 

Letting go of this place is so hard.  

I'm so excited to be someplace else. 

But not knowing where I'll have lunch-- terrifying.

Things I will miss about Massachusetts: Part 1

As I was driving through Lynn the other day, and talking on the phone to a friend, and way too tired to be doing either of these things (let alone simaltaneously), I noticed a creature that I saw far too often in Lynn and one that I always had unanswered questions about.  I call her: 

"Takes the stroller to the grocery store and uses it as a cart to bring the groceries home Lady"

I have so many questions about this behavior.  

Is there a baby in the stroller?

If yes: YOU ARE SMOTHERING THE BABY!!!!!  THE BABY CAN'T BREATHE!!!!!

If no: Did you walk the empty stroller to the grocery store to use it as a cart?

   Where is the baby?

     Is it your stroller or did you borrow it from someone?

     Why don't you just steal a cart?

    Did you use a cart at the grocery store, or use the stroller as your cart the whole time?

I would, when I lived in Lynn for two years, occasionally see people walking empty strollers around, and would feel a surge of panic,  and wonder if I should try to communicate to them that there was indeed NO BABY in the stroller.  "They probably know that" I would think to myself to forgive myself for not trying to attempt the language barrier.  But where was the baby?  And why walk around an empty stroller?  

I guess they were all just on their way to Stop and Shop.

And weirdly, I will miss this about Massachusetts.

Change

I've been thinking a lot about change lately-- about how difficult it can be, how exciting and stressful, how scary and exhilerating, and how often we try to prevent it with everything that we are.  

3 weeks ago, John and I were in New York visiting my parents, and we were sitting at a restaurant having lunch and discussing how great it would be if we were closer, if life were different, if we could visit more often and not have it involve a 5 and a half hour drive to get there.  How much we wished things could change.  Within a week, I had applied at a new job, gotten an interview, then a second interview, and how 3 weeks and one day later we are moving up there.  This enormous, impossible change that we were wistfully daydreaming about is happening.  We have passed the point of no return and we are moving, in less than a month.  In less than a month we will be Vermonters, we will be living in a bigger house than we have ever lived in together.  We will be starting new jobs.  We basically are changing everything about our lives; stepping way out of our comfort level and trying something different.  And I love it.  It takes my breath away.  

All of the biggest celebrations, all the noteworthy events in our lives are based on change.  Passing from one year to the next we celebrate birthdays, we celebrate graduations, we celebrate moving from childhood into adulthood, we celebrate new jobs, we celebrate lives when people pass on.  Marriages, retirements, even holidays.  It's all about change.  

How funny, then, that it is so scary.  That we don't let ourselves change when it is the thing our lives need most.  I applied for this job in Burlington on a whim, thinking to myself that the economy was in the shitter and there was no way this would happen.  It was just an extension of my daydream-- just something to do.  But it changed everything.

You really can change your life just by changing your mind.

John and I moved to Massachusetts to begin something brand new.  We moved here for different opportunities, for school and for life.  We came here and we struggled, and we grew, and we learned how to love each other more.  We became a unit in a way we hadn't ever been before.  We fell in love again, with each other and with ourselves.  We became a family with our cats.  We found true friends.  When he graduated in May, we knew our time here was ending, we just weren't sure how to move on.  And I think each day since then, we've been leaving a little bit.  Saying goodbye to people and places that made our time here what it was.  But we were stuck.  We didn't know what to do next.  It was confusing and overwhelming.  We were hamsters stuck on a wheel.  We made just enough to pay the bills for the month and have a little fun, but none to save.  It seemed impossible that we would ever be able to leave.  We began to hate it here.  We hated the commutes, our jobs.  We hated our apartment, the neighbors.  And then all of a sudden, we took a leap of faith.  We did something crazy, that we knew couldn't work out.  But it did.  We changed out minds about what was possible for us.  And we made a new future.  It isn't the one we had in mind, going north instead of south.  But it feels right.  It feels exciting.  And it feels different.  And that may be the best of all.  Because as terrifying as change can be, at least it's something new.