Home, Again today November 11, 2009

This blog is titled after 2 songs that, when I listened to them this summer, spoke to me so loudly I almost hated hearing them. Like when your mom gives you unsolicited advice and you try to pretend like you’re not listening because you know she’s right. 

So it’s been four long, exhausting (yet exciting), whirlwind months since I last wrote of my many mini life adventures. Though I have countless stories of what I’ve done, where I’ve been, and the amazing people I’ve met along the way, so much has happened and changed that it honestly all feels like a blur. All of the ups and downs (and near quarter life crises) in such a short time period makes me hardly able to recall it all or differentiate one place or experience from the next…For that reason I’m quite disappointed in myself for not keeping up with it all via this little blog. It was intended, afterall, to help me stay in touch with myself. Even if no one reads it, it’s good for my soul and my sanity to put it out there. So I suppose I should recap and update for those of you who I have yet to catch up with since settling back down into a stationary existence.

Mid August: Camp Wicoshootme (along with my daily torture) had finally come to an end. If ever in my life was I close to losing my mind, it was at this quaint little New Hampshire Hell. Though relieved to have regained my personal freedom, the imminent obligations of major life decisions were stalking the back of my mind quite consistently. Leaving the Northeast meant I was going back into real life where I had no job, no home, and  no strings attaching me to anyone or any place.  So like most young twenty somethings I decided it would be a great idea to go to New York City for a bit to help clear my mind.
 Shockingly enough, smelly summer subway stations are actually pretty great places to clear one’s mind…and appetite…but that’s beside the point. Being in such an outrageously  populated place made me feel so incredibly insignificant…which oddly enough brought me much needed peace. This feeling combined with my recent paradoxical summer experiences of freedom vs. camp imprisonment, uncertainty vs. love, excitement vs. disappointment, newness vs. annoying familiarity, etc, set off a variety of  emotions and epiphanies inside me.
Epiphanies: First I realized that I have the ability to survive and be perfectly content on my own. For 3 months I was pretty much my own support system, my own best friend, the only person I knew at most places I went. Secondly, good people are everywhere and I have the awesome ability of turning those good people into my dear friends. I now have amazing friends I can visit in some pretty rad places like Boston, Maine, Vermont, Connecticut, New York, Baltimore, DC, and even Canada!  Finally though, and most importantly, I admitted to myself that I was tired. Tired of being alone, tired of wandering about in an unstable state of being, and tired of having only my car to call home. Was it worth it? Without a doubt. I found myself.

Nashville: This is my home. I don’t know how it happened, but it sucked me in and man did I miss it while I was gone. I left Nashville in late May as if it was just another meaningless stop along my way in life. Not in the slightest way expecting to miss the city or all of the wonderful people in it. I was deeply mistaken. The moment I arrived back in Nashville, I felt like I had never left. It felt like home. Even if I was still living in my car, at least it was parked in the city I wanted to be in….

So with help from wonderful friends and their cozy couches, I worked my way back to being a normal human being.  With my dear friend and now roommate, Leland Grant, I found an adorable place to live (that doesn’t have 4 wheels) in an awesome little neighborhood called Germantown. And though I was certain I would never find a job in this economy, I quickly landed one in the Pediatric Emergency Dept. at Vanderbilt, the job I’ve wanted since I graduated college. Most importantly, I was reunited with the love of my life and sweet fur child, Pepsi. She had a conniption fit of happy when she saw me for the first time…ok maybe we both did.

Cambodia: I went in October. It was amazing. I’ll write about it very soon. With pictures that will warm your soul.

 

 

Below are a few simple things that have gone on since I’ve been home. Doubling as photographic reminders of why I love Nashville….also Pepsi in her ridiculous bee costume….naturally.

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