some truth.

he'd just eaten seven hotdogs on dollar dog night. i, however, have no excuse. we are the most photogenic couple to grace the earth, obviously.

There are things I take for granted now that in less than three months may cause tantrums and tears in their absence. This is more than just having an Apple store within a 25 mile radius of my person for inevitable technology-related meltdowns, although I've already gritted my teeth in anticipation of such events.

 

 

This is something more along the lines of struggling to feed myself, lacking back-rubs and soothing words, and the absence of a warm body I've grown so accustomed to waking up next to.

 

 

What I'm trying to say is that Matt isn't coming to Montana with me.

 

 

At least not at first.

 

 

Let me say up front that I am the reason for this. I have asked him to hang back. I've insisted in my own stubborn way that this is a path I need to forge on my own. Because honestly, I feel it like electricity moving through my veins, my need to set off on my own. To me, it's a fact as solid as my eyes being green and my perpetual appetite for bacon. It defies any logical explanation for me, it just is. I need to go alone, to start this pursuit on my own, to go forth without company.

 

 

In true Matt form he's taken this request as he always does with my self-over analyzed bombs of news that aren't what he wanted to hear. First he was silent, then he fought me, and then he accepted it, because he loves me and knows that my way is just as ingrained in me as all the other qualities he loves. The good with the bad. The easy with the difficult.

 

 

To say he understands my need to leave alone probably misses the mark. In truth, I can't even fully wrap my mind around this compulsion, let alone give a cohesive and coherent argument to present my case. But he accepts this as my choice and my decision, and for that I am flooded with gratitude and overtaken by affection for him.

 

 

It took me a long time to reason with myself about this decision, and a lot of grappling with feelings of guilt and selfishness at pushing a distance nearly a country-width between us, especially when Matt is vehemently against us being apart. He planned to move with me wherever I went to grad school from the start, no matter how far or at what cost. He's supportive and amazing and I don't deserve it.

 

 

But he's not coming now, and it's my doing.

 

 

I know the day I leave is one we're both dreading in our own way. But I'm heading toward something I am drawn to with wonder and he's being left behind, so what follows the moment we part will be an utterly different experience for us both. Now that the room has stopped spinning a bit at the reality of the events unfolding and I've had time to calm down and consider things, clarity is coming a bit more easily. But only a bit.

 

 

As I've pondered and poked at the reasons for my decision, I realized a few things about the nature of my choice.

 

 

1. I genuinely don't want to be with anyone else in this world. Just Matt. In my heart, I don't look at my leaving as me leaving him, just a necessary step in the process until we're reunited.

 

 

2. I have total faith in the strength of our relationship. Total faith. Which is kind of eerie, to be honest. I know it will be hard at times, as I've done a long distance relationship before, but I'm going into it with total confidence this time. We will be fine. We will learn a lot. We will emerge stronger and intact.

 

 

3. Going back to school is fucking hard and grad school is very time consuming. I've been out of school for four years. I'm nervous about this. Actually, I'm scared shitless. It's enough of an adjustment and commitment without dragging a stubborn and antisocial man who doesn't want to move to Montana and 160 pound beast-dog across the country with me. I need focus and peace and alone time to process. I fear with Matt there I would not be able to find a good balance for my time. I will have no time to speak of anyway. I cannot afford distraction and resentment because of hard adjustments. I adjust to change almost instantly, Matt is a little slower to come around. It's just a fact, not a fault. Still, it is something I've had to consider.

 

 

4. Matt does not want to move to Montana. It's one of my biggest dreams. I will not have my dream hampered from the start by someone who doesn't want to be there, however unintentional, however much I love that person with all of my heart. However much he may have tried to hide it. I would have known. Things would have gotten weird. Bad weird.

 

 

5. This may be my last chance to live alone. Ever. I can't for the life of me let that go easily. I want one last cozy nook of the world that is mine and mine alone.  

 

 

6. Matt and I have very different ideas about what makes a fulfilling leisure time activity. I want to be outside playing and or reading and or at the bar with my friends and he wants to be at home on the couch watching sports and playing xbox. It's leisure time and there's no wrong way to do it, but in any precious time I have to spend in leisure while I have such an impressive display of the great outdoors at my disposal, I'm not interested in holing up inside. At all. I brought no television to this relationship and I don't intend to carry one with me out west. That's not be being a pretentious hipster, that is me voicing my needs honestly, part of the reason I'm moving out west is the breathtaking landscape. I need to be out in it.

 

 

7. I am infuriatingly selfish.

 

 

8. My guts. My head. My heart. My soul. They're all working together on this one and the message is clear. Do this thing for yourself. This is you, pursuing your dreams. It gets harder to chase them every single day that you wait. Run. Hunt them. Catch them. This is something you have to do to feel purpose and contentment with life, no matter how great your partner. You have to be okay with yourself, love yourself first. This is a journey you must take alone. You can do it. Trust yourself.

 

 

 

And so I am. I'm doing it by myself.

 

 

The plan is for Matt and I to start talking about him moving west after Christmas when he's had time to save some money, look for a job, and buy a car- Another good reason for him to wait.

 

 

 We've talked and fought and hugged and sat in silence over this. And now it's done and we move forward with the plan in place. Not all of our arguments and misunderstandings have such amicable and positive endings, but I'm comforted to see that the big ones do. The ones that truly matter in the grand scheme, those we can work through and tease out and iron of wrinkles.

 

 

I'm not really afraid of spiders, so I can't say I'll be missing my protector from icky things, but there are millions of other ways Matt saves me every single day, and I can't wait to fully appreciate every single one of them in his absence, and then thank him repeatedly when we are reunited. But for now:

 

I love you, Matt. Thank you for saving me hundreds of times every single day in every way I need it.  

 

 

my hand is a wimp.

looks completely normal. hurts like a mother. yes, i have freckles on my palm.

So here's something awesome slash really embarrassing:  I think I need to have my hand x-rayed.

Now, I've always been super accident prone in general and incredibly idiotic when drunk, so I've had my fair share of injuries. Usually bumps and bruises, occasionally something that needs ice thrown on it, every once in a blue moon something that needs inspection by a medical professional.

It all just kind of comes with the territory. Give me a simple flight of stairs one step and I will easily find a way to fall up/down it, no matter my mental state.

So naturally the knowledge for this tendency to accidentally hurt myself is usually enough to prevent me from further putting my person into harm's way or, god forbid, seeking out injury/tempting fate.

With a few exceptions.

About two months ago I was driving along, throwing a fit in my car like the two year old I am at heart. I decided it would definitely help me calm down if I took my aggression out on something physically. Because that's so far really helped me the past 25 years. Right.

So, being the typically non-militant gal that I am, I wasn't really sure how to actually accomplish this, plus I am severely impatient, so I just closed my fist and took and jab at my radio display without really thinking.

Yeah, nothing.

But you know what? I'm not a quitter. So I decided to give it another shot.

This time, I was stopped at a light so I really wound up and punched the thing, for good measure.

Holy shit you guys.

Have you ever punched something harder than your hand with all your might or even half of your might? It's fucking dumb, first of all. Second of all, I broke my radio display, so that was stupid. Third of all, I'm the asshole punching shit in my car which doesn't bode well for my mental stability. And I mean, this was purely out of curiosity anyway, kind of an experiment to see if I would feel anything.

And I did. I felt like an idiot.

Plus I hurt my hand.

You see, at first it just felt kind of bruised. Like a good little hand, it never got swollen or REALLY hurt. So, I thought we were in business and everything would be fine except that I'm apparently unstable and do idiotic things.

But no. I mean, it's been two months now and we're still not swollen or unbearable, but making a fist really hurts and holding a pen really hurts and basically touching anything with my pinky sends shooting pains up my wrist. I'm guessing that's not a sign of healing.

Here's the other thing. If you're going to do stupid, impulsive things, there is usually a price to pay for it. Since I'm moving across the country in less than three months, and I am literally saving pennies and cannot afford to pay this price. Granted, I have insurance so it should be mostly covered, but insurance isn't magic money, I will still have to pay up to my deductible.




YAY!

I totally didn't need to eat until my move!

So anyway, I'm thinking of trying to rig up a splint on my pinky finger for a week or three to see if that does any good since the pain isn't killing me now, what harm will a few more weeks do? Believe me, I know how idiotic that sounds. I know. Too bad. I'm stubborn and poor.

Let this be a cautionary tale, the radio display in your motor vehicle will  likely win a fight against you.  

nothing appears to have gone awry. yet the entire right side of my hand hurts.

don't try to fight the radio. it never works out. the reason i look so miserable in this picture is because i was actually in pain. super lame.

art is emotional.




Nan and Papa in front of their soon-to-be home.

 

Friday afternoon I cut out of work early and drove the five hours Northeast to my grandparent's house, because even at twenty five, when given the option of this or nearly anything else, I'll still choose a visit to grandmother's.

We've always been close, although there have been times where a lag between us speaking grows too long and uncomfortable and requires repair.  Still, we reach out to each other to bridge the gap. Because we're family, and we have to, yes, but also because we choose each other.

When, a few years ago, they sold the lake cottage where I spent all of my childhood summers getting sunburned and running wild, I was sure I could never forgive them; I cried myself to sleep for months mourning the place that held so many of my happiest memories. Yet there I was on the day they moved into their new home, helping carry boxes down the perilous stairs and holding a hand for morale and support.

They mean so much that even the fleeting thought of them one day being taken away from me brings involuntary tears to my eyes before I squelch it and move on with my day. A reaction too powerful to really ignore despite the refusal of my stubborn mind to acknowledge the thought.

This weekend, we had a great visit. We dined and cocktailed and chatted and heart-to-hearted. It was everything I needed it to be and it always is. I didn't want to leave, but then again, I've never wanted to leave. They're my biggest fans, so interested in everything I have to say, I feel like a celebrity in their midst. They're equally as fascinating to me. I've grown fixated on asking any question that pops into my mind, determined to learn as much of them and their lives as I can. I attempt to memorize everything so that nothing will ever be lost, no matter the way time and change try to erase things.

After dinner on Friday night we wandered the eclectic downtown area of Ann Arbor, on our way to the ice cream shop as has become our tradition. They're spoiling me, but I think secretly they're partly glad for my visits as a way to excuse generous ice cream consumption. Either way, we're all winning.

We were chatting as we passed a frame shop and I mentioned a map I bought several years ago of the lake that fed my childhood, and how I'd been meaning to have it framed, but it keeps getting lost in the shuffle of life.  Try as I might not to, I always end up bring up the lake when we're together, pushing the tender place we all have on our hearts. What happened next was odd, and heartwrenching.

My papa looked down at my nan and they had a short conversation as if I wasn't even there, and then seamlessly incorporated me back in.

Papa: Nance, I think Sara should get the painting of the cottage, she's always been the one that loved it the most.

Nan: Yes, that sounds right.

Papa: How does that sound, Sara?

Me: I love the painting, of course I'd love to have it. But that's so far away, I've never even thought of it.

Papa: Well it won't be for a while, we're hanging it in the new house. We've still got some life left in us. Just, you know, when the time comes.

Me: I can't really think about that without crying.

Papa: Well, okay. Enough then.

As I am literally choking back tears. I'm just not ready for them to start divvying up their things.

The painting in question is one they had commissioned several years ago, of the cottage and my Nan's garden there in peak form, a reminder they had created for when they were spending winter or fall in their homes in Florida or Ohio.

It's a large picture and it hangs over the fireplace of their sole remaining home in a suburb of Ann Arbor, which they're now selling to move into a smaller home in a retirement community this summer, a fact that equally breaks my heart and infuriates me. I can't stand to think of them getting older and older until they'll eventually leave me.

I just can't even consider it.

They're downsizing for the move to their new, considerably smaller house, and things are being sold and claimed by my dad and his brothers. They're purging their things, and I can't help but think it one of the saddest things a person will ever do in their lives. After a lifetime of continuously, and often accidentally, accumulating all the stuff that makes a life, getting rid of it, putting it into younger hands. Letting things go.

While I'm thrilled at the prospect of having the beautiful painting, a reminder of my favorite place and of my favorite people hanging in my own home someday, I genuinely hope the day never, ever comes when it actually becomes mine.

It was an emotional weekend.

my happiest place.

fickle march, fickle me

maybe i need to stop taking emo pics and actually work through my emotions. nahhhh.

The other morning on my way to work I sat through an entire red light without realizing my right turn signal was blinkblinkblinking away. I was going straight. I flipped it off as I accelerated through the light and looked around sheepishly at the other cars to see if anyone was pissed and/or making obscene gestures at me. Guess everyone was feeling pretty tame that morning because I didn't get a single side-eye. Maybe they thought it was a late April Fools joke. A cheap leftover.

 

I guess I lost myself there for a second in contemplating what a good month March was to me this year. To tell the truth, I've never really had any real affinity toward Spring. I get it, I get it. Rebirth, life, emerging on the other side of Winter. It's all well and good to see green again and to not feel like my fingers and ears are going to fall off every time I step outside, but really, I'm in it for Summer. Spring is just another thing to endure before blistering heat, minimal clothing, and the promise of campfires and sunshine and reading while partially submerged in water.

 

Spring is fickle. It changes its mind too often, threatens to give my psyche whiplash. It's soggy and tumultuous, despite the hardy daffodils and magnolias that quickly remind us of all to come and then fade until next year.They're a treat, but they're not made to last.  No wonder Picses are the way that they are, they kick off Spring. Anyone born at the start of such a finicky season is bound to brood. And yet, I'm attracted to the depth and the endless rollercoaster ride that the Picses in my life take me on. As I've mentioned probably a hundred times, I'm a summer soul through and through.  I usually have no use for finicky March. For the battle of rain and sun, warm and cold.  Why should I? I know who is going to win out, let's get on with the next.

 

I sometimes feel like my entire life is a series of waiting to get on with the next.

 

I don't know, I mean, I make as much effort as the next guy to really be present in the moment and enjoy where I am, but the fact of the matter is that I'm like a half-starved animal- I'm always reaching, stretching, grasping, struggling for more. Just a little further. Just a little tiny bit more. Just just just just.

 

 

Just slow down, Sara.

 

Let's consider real life for a moment.

 

Have I mentioned recently that I'm moving to Montana in a few short months? Yeah. That's happening. In my mind I'm so overwhelmed by the fact that I'm going to pacify this internal pull to run to the mountains that I don't even know where to start here. What can I do but wait until it's finally time?

 

I know this thinking isn't productive. It doesn't encourage lists or tying up loose ends or force me to grapple with leaving the life I've forged here. It's so confusing that I don't feel joy or sadness or anything really. Just the knowledge that I'm going, the impatience that I'm not there yet, and the dull sinking feeling that comes with knowing that there is so much to do before I depart. But I feel sort of stuck, like there's nothing I can do right in this exact moment in time, and that frustration feels raw and itchy. It's a rash I wear constantly. It's distracting and demanding. It takes so much effort and will power to keep it at bay.

 

And this is the line I dream of:

 

"Let there be rock and roll on the dashboard rado; let there be occasional hands bongoing on the dashboard. Let that white line in the middle of the far west two-lane highway come feeding into the screen..." -Jack Kerouac

 

My soul is so far away from my body and right now I feel ugently that, for once, it is crucial that my soul and body inhabit the same plane.

 

And yet March was wonderful and wild. I planted bulbs and pulled weeds and watched little green tongues poke through the soil, so hungry for sunlight. I welcomed a member of my family and watched my sister become a mother, a role she falls into so naturally that I'm once again shocked that we can at the same time be so alike and so differerent. I got accepted into school and decided on a new life path. I had serious conversations with Matt about our future, read many delightful books, saw one of my favorite bands in concert, and painted some beautiful pictures. I started running again and told my boss that I'm gone by summer's end and cheered my alma mater all the way to the final four. I celebrated the birthdays of my sister and brother and got a sun tan on my face and arms from a week straight of 80 degree days.

 

March was full, you guys.

 

Full of good.

 

It deserved to be treasured and polished for memory.

 

So why do I feel so distracted by something I can't pull out of my periphery? It's right there, but I can't catch it staring straight on.

how to piss yourself off.

 Ponder the compartmentalization of your emotions in the shower. Wonder if you actually feel anything for anyone. Lament the fact that no one you've ever been super close to has died tragically. Feel instant guilt.

 

Compartmentalize it.

 

Remember yesterday in your cubicle. The married dude with the new baby walked by your desk. Remember the instant you realized this had spurred you to fix and fuss over your hair. You don't even like that guy. And he didn't even look over at you.  He probably listens to Dave Matthews.  And remember that time he showed up in front of you with an ultrasound picture like a year ago and thrust it at you without saying anything?

 

Awkward.

 

He never makes a fresh pot of coffee when he pours himself the rest. Rude. Annoying.

 

You don't want to be the type of woman who primps because people are looking at her. Or even at the prospect of someone looking at you.

 

No one is looking at you.

 

Wonder if catching yourself in the act makes you more or less self aware than the people around you. Arrive at the conclusion of more.

 

Feel a little pleasure at this conclusion.

 

Realize you've just wasted your time thinking about this, when you should have been thinking about any of the 2383897 more pressing issues in your life.

 

Worry instead about the wrinkles you contributed to by squinting the way you always do when thinking about yourself unfavorably.

 

Arrive at yet another conclusion, you're vain.

 

And you annoy yourself.

 

Happy Thursday.

 

 

leaping.

Do you ever put yourself out there and end up getting burned for it?



I know I do.


Actually, it is my personal preference to only associate with people who are willing to put themselves out there. For what is mostly irrelevant, but the willingness to make a figurative leap is non-negotiable. We're not talking about blindly jumping off emotional cliffs like lemmings, so much as having something deep down that makes you tick, that matters enough that when it comes down to it, you'll put yourself out there for it.  The more people I meet, the rarer a trait I find this to be; people like to keep their heads down with the rest of the herd it seems.


My friends and I joke about it sometimes, that feeling we all crave. "Let's get all hopped up on whiskey and take some risks!"


But really, it's not just the liquid courage or the laughter or the foolishness in behavior that usually comes with finding your niche; it's something hidden from the surface that has to be felt to be believed in.



It's having something you care about enough to take a leap of faith and the willingness to suffer the consequences- whether it be financial, a falter in stride, humiliation, heart break.



The leap that forces pride, despite most of our strongest instincts, into the back seat. It's passion, it's the glint in your eye, it's a constant and insatiable hunger for whatever it is that keeps you up nights.


It's always wanting more.


I was just thinking about the leap. I've always really liked the feeling right after, sort of a free fall before the result reveals itself, the euphoric knowledge that you found it within yourself to jump anyway, regardless of what happens. No one can take that away.


Getting to the jump though, standing on the mental ledge and forcing yourself off, that's the hard part.


In truth, it's almost never only about the outcome for me, which I know is a little hard to believe, but I've given this a great deal of thought and, at least for me, it's really true. Even when the end result doesn't pan out to my advantage and I'm thrown off course or worse, I'm still just about always glad to have taken the leap, to have risked, to have had enough passion coursing through my veins that I was willing to have things go either way just to know how the cards would fall. That's doesn't mean it's easy, though.


Knowing the result, that's the payoff.


But taking that leap of faith, sending that letter bursting with emotion or moving to that city on a whim, that's proof that you're still more than just alive, it shows you're engaging, that you're living. It's a way to finally clear the air or an opportunity to fall on your face and lose all your money, but maybe you at least discovered some good restaurants along the way- as I found out first hand in both cases.

Anyway, I'm working on taking some leaps here coming up. I'm inching up to the ledge and looking down. I know I'll jump, and though I don't know exactly what will happen, I know there will be results both good and bad.  I also know, without a doubt, that I'll be glad I took the chance instead of standing in place.


Cheers to the feeling of your stomach falling through your feet, and cheers to finding a soft spot to land.

a weird day. a full day.

Yesterday was a weird day.

 

 

Too full of emotion and heartbreak and inspiration and strength for one day. No. Not too much. Actually, if I had my way, every day would force so much feeling. So much recognition of what connects us. So many reminders that this is humanity and it is what we have to work with and the best we can do is to seek to stretch the limits that confine us. Push it out. Let ourselves feel it all. Look up from a book at the library and realize you're crying. Not because something sad or catastrophic happened, but because someone finally found the words to say that one thing. Because it feels like it could be you.  

 

 

Yesterday was an emotional revolution for me, from start to finish. On a personal level.

 

 

I learned a lot. Isn't it bizarre that sometimes you learn so much in one span of wakefulness?

 

 

I was honest with myself for the first time in a long time, the kind of honest that feels good even when it's not what you wanted to hear or admit.

 

 

A friend told me yesterday that she'll struggle until the day she dies with the idea that life isn't black and white, and that resonated with me. Because wouldn't it be easier? I can't help but think of myself as black and white sometimes, drawn to the poles and extremes. But the gray, the different shades that fill in around everything easy to place, that is perhaps our greatest treasure, the most important gift granted to humankind.

 

 

The gray. The interpretation, the individuality, the hard call that went the way you weren't expecting, that is the beauty of us.

 

 

Which I think I was trying to say yesterday before I got caught up in confession hour and media criticism.

 

 

We may strive for black and white, for understanding and clear lines, but the truth is that we're gray and I'm beginning to realize how thankful I am for that fact.

 

 

The other day I posted about a friendship I didn't think I could salvage, so I'd decided to scrap.

 

 

For some reason this fits: "Man plans, God laughs." I don't know if there is a God, but I sure hope someone is laughing at all the folly.

 

 

It was done, for me. I was going to cut my losses, even though they were big. Then I thought, maybe after one last conversation. Yes, I decided to go for the confrontation. And in thinking and worrying and trying to form any semblance of organization in what I wanted to express, I realized that maybe I was wrong.

 

 

Not wrong in how I felt, or wrong to take a step back. Every friendship, every true friendship has tests and moments of tumult. But I realized that once I let people in, gently ease my level of heavy into their hands for a moment so they can gauge it before I take it back within me, sometimes, on rare occasion, they hold my gaze and say "Oh, that's how much? Yes, yes, or course. That's no trouble at all. I can help carry that," and then a certain agreement has been reached. That I'm responsible too, for their heavy. That periods of silence can be comfortable and that sometimes what we're carrying ourselves gets too heavy to allow anything else. Not that we don't want to throw it right on top and carry it too, we just can't.

 

Friendship, it doesn't mean approving of every decision, or not stepping back. It means making the hard calls, and also accepting that sometimes, for no other reason than that we can and we want to, we change our minds.

 

I know that I've already done my resolutions, and I'm off to a pretty winning start, although I haven't delved into the bubbly since NYE, but I want to add one more, not for this year, but for forever, for my life. I want to, need to, start dancing in the gray parts. To see the beauty in the fact that nothing, nothing that has to do with the realm of human relationships and the spectrum of our emotional capabilities is black and white. Not just because it's so rare that I feel things absolutely anyway, but because it wouldn't be fair to expect myself to.

 

We are fluid, not steel, not matter how hard we try to be. But that doesn't mean we're not strong, perhaps it just means we have the advantage of flexibility, and change.  

 

And that's just part of what I learned yesterday.