opening at the close

I've been tinkering and thinking about this post for a while.  Sit down to write, find something better to do, and leave it in my mind to roll around and grow maybe a little stronger.  A little bit better.  It's not an easy or necessarily fun task to wrap up what you've learned in a year's time, to discover and unfold whatever lessons may have been bestowed upon you... or to really put away anything left unsaid and undone.  I didn't know what to even title it, and then got to thinking about Harry Potter and realized how perfectly something from the end of the franchise would apply.  And thus, I moved forward.

I think it takes a little bit of time after something has ended for your mind (my mind, really) to come to terms with what happened.  A month ago today Derek and I moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota.  It was an idea that came about rather quickly in May, unfurling throughout June, and then thrown into action on July 1st when we gave notice to break our newly signed lease 10 months early.  I didn't have a concrete job lined up, Derek had no job at all lined up, and we didn't have a place to live.  Everything came together in a game of chance and perseverance and we landed in a suburb called Crystal, right-side up.

Granted, we felt this way once before as well.

Because it was a year ago today that we also moved away from Wisconsin to Austin, Texas.  It's hard for me to decide if I would still have moved down, if I knew then what I know now, but I think that's the beauty of hindsight.

I find it difficult to put myself in the shoes I was in a year ago.  On the brink of some unknown adventure, with no clue what was really in store for me.  I remember the first time I moved out on my own, and how hard it was for Ken to deal with me.  That move was just across town... less than six miles.  I can't imagine how Derek dealt with me after moving 1,800 miles, but I suppose the proof's in the pudding.  No affairs and we're still together, happy as clams more or less.

If you want to read about Texas you're more than welcome to, it's all right here in a summation of things.  As for me, I'd prefer not to walk down that Lone Star road again because as one of my favorite quotes says, "don't look back, you're not going that way."

When we packed up the truck and subsequently drove away, I didn't feel a single thing other than pure elation.  No tightness in the throat about leaving, no sadness of what was shrinking in the rear-view mirror.  We make poor choices sometimes in life and this was one of mine.  For me there was no emotion over leaving this place behind, instead it's the people... that's what makes me sad.  Nothing else really.

Work life never really got my spirits up, and some of you might think that's ironic because who's ever really happy at work?  But I can be... I had been before.  You should at least enjoy going to work and doing what you do, otherwise you're in the wrong field and you should get the hell out.  I just kept waiting for it to get better at the respective jobs and it never did.  You can try as much as you want sometimes, it won't make a difference.  But what did make a difference were the people.  None of them ever hit "best friend" status, and that's okay because maybe they weren't meant to.  But they did reach a status where I looked forward to seeing them, where I laughed hysterically to the point of tears with them, and where I cared deeply for their well being.

And I do miss them very much.  I miss sharing stories with them and seeing their creative outlooks on life, because if there is one thing that was never missing it was creativity.  I worked with such a talented group of people, with such big personalities, that it truly was inspiring.  A month on now I'm happy I am still in contact with several of them, be it through Instagram or Facebook of even the occasional Skype session.  Forging these friendships kept me sane and for that I'll always be grateful.

So, moving on.

What I find interesting is how once we moved I just couldn't relax.  The house we moved into was left in a condition that wasn't very pleasant, so there was a lot of work to be done.  Patching walls, painting walls, painting trim, cleaning and cleaning and cleaning.  In my mind I felt no different here than I had in Austin, save for the fact that the weather was a little cooler and more tolerable to have the windows open.  Derek asked me if I was happier and I kind of shrugged and said "I think so," but in my head I didn't know if I believed it or not.  I didn't know if he believed me or not.

I mean... my job is better, and that's something, right?  Coming back to Pottery Barn meant coming back to a family I had been sorely missing.  After two days the stories behind furniture collections were coming back to me, the names were coming back.  Memories and facts and thoughts and ideas and everything in between.  West Elm never really caught on for me and I can't help but think it's because in my core, I just didn't want to be there.  I didn't want to learn about the collections and I didn't want to adapt to the logic behind how the company ran, because it was different from Pottery Barn and those were the ones closer to my core beliefs.  Not to say they were "wrong," they just weren't what I wanted.

Aside from my job, Derek and I weren't doing anything here in Minnesota.  We went downtown the night we got here and then didn't go again until just this weekend.  We ate out a lot because I didn't want to cook on the dirty stove or put anything in the dirty oven.  I also didn't want to actually clean it, because I had a bathroom to scour and a dining room/hallway/office/kitchen to fix, in that order.  It wasn't at the top of my list as skewed as it may have been.  Add to that a gigantic garden in the backyard, an actual yard that needed to be maintained, and sorting through the numerous boxes (some of which had never been unpacked from the original move).  There was a lot to do.  So I kept my head down and kept working.

Three weeks after getting here, when I put the last empty box out in the garage and closed the last cupboard, lighting a couple candles and looking around at the completed work, it hit me.  Keeping my head down and focused meant working on the only real negatives here, and once I finished, everything else seemed to come into focus.  This place is amazing, and while we landed on our feet as we did in Austin, there is something different this time around.  Tangible.

I finally live in a single-family home again, with a dedicated office and wall colors I got to pick.  With a great big yard in an old neighborhood that is quiet and with friendly neighbors.  We both have jobs we're happy at, we live within a fairly short drive home to Wisconsin, and we're making more money than we were down south.  The traffic isn't as bad, the heat definitely isn't as bad, and the people are just a little bit nicer.  There's less negativity from the people you encounter... less bitterness over the city or the world or the climate.  Maybe that's just a Midwest thing, maybe it's not.

Hopefully in the end what this all means is that with everything falling into place, it will allow Derek and I to work on the things in our relationship that maybe aren't the best in the world.  Not to say they're bad, because they aren't, but it can always be better.  There is a whole new world for us to explore right now and we haven't even attempted to scratch the surface of it.  In a couple weeks the colors on the trees will start changing, throwing us into my favorite season of the year, fall.  Pumpkins and spices and festivals and cool days and sweaters and coats and cloudy skies and rain and wind.

It might be a hell to some people but to me it's paradise.

In the end there is really just one thing to say about what the last year of my life taught me.  Was Austin the worst place in the world?  Not at all.  But Austin wasn't for me and that's okay to say.  Living there taught me a very important life lesson: you might not always find a better life in what you thought was the city of your dreams, but there's nothing wrong with trying and ultimately deciding against it.  It's how we grow and learn as human beings.  A year ago today I started closing up, shutting out certain people from my life and shouldering forward as strongly and sometimes stubbornly as I could.  Trying to learn lessons but mostly just being miserable and even more closed and bitter.  Now that it's over, now that the ducks are all in a row here in Minnesota, I can feel myself opening back up.

It's a wonderful and exciting thing to feel and experience, and it makes me look back somewhat fondly on my experience in Texas.  If it hadn't been for Texas, I wouldn't have lost my voice and subsequently found it once more.  I wouldn't have realized what I'd been taking for granted in Wisconsin for so long, and I wouldn't have realized how much I'd miss it when it was gone.  It took just three weeks of rumination for me to bounce back, to breathe in deeply, and to find more reasons to smile.  21 days before I wanted to start writing again, to start editing, to start working on art projects.  It makes me wonder what comes next?

Because as the solid year of life changes and monumental choices comes to an end, indeed, I've opened at the close.

Ciao for now (c: