a word on being alone.

I've learned to like being alone.  I like to go on walks with myself just to look at the trees.  I like to sit with my thoughts and unravel the world around me.  I like that I don’t have a TV.  I will say I spend way too much time on my computer, but everyone has a vice.  I like cooking whatever I want and eating whenever I want.  I like that some days I want to crank the music and dance around naked and other days I prefer silence (if my neighbors comply).  I like having the freedom to sit on my couch and listen to the birds sing and the trees blow in the breeze.  I like that I can close my front blinds and no one knows my whereabouts. 

Don’t get me wrong, I experience painful loneliness.  Aching throughout my whole body, hopelessness clouding my thoughts making me certain that no one loves me or could love me and certainly no one misses my presence.  I do need human interaction and some days I go to the grocery store just so I can smile at someone and speak a few words to anything besides a plant.

But Asheville has been great for this balance.  Had I stayed at home the temptation to go out with friends or run home at the first twinge of loneliness would have distracted me from what I really needed to do - Become friends with myself.

"Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there is in silence." Max Ehrmann"

rooting down for freedom

The mountains are always West in Colorado.  I always knew which way I was headed.  Even in the dark or in my home I could feel their presence and have direction.  As a kid I would lay in my bed at night and figure out which way my head was facing, somehow feeling comforted just by knowing where I was in relation to the mountains.  But in Asheville, the mountains are everywhere.  They all surround you, looking the same, providing no guidance.

And that is exactly how I feel here - directionless.

I've been thinking a lot lately about roots.  Partly because I'm in a botany class and partly because it's Spring.  But it seems that in a way roots actually provide freedom.  If a plant or tree has a good root system it can move around, blow in the breeze, bend side to side and be just fine.  However, you see trees or plants with a poor root system and a strong breeze comes and blows it over.

I don't want to be blown over.

I am so thankful for my freedom.  I have chosen every part of my life right now and I love that.  I needed this experience to prove to myself that I am an adult - that I am independent and that I can make it in this world.  I could continue with the plant metaphor and say that I am currently a seed that was caught in the wind and looking for a place to land.

3 months

Who would think that moving home would be as big of a challenge as moving away?  I got this crazy idea last month after my trip to California that I needed to go and work in a garden full time this summer.  Well that morphed into quitting my job, and leaving my cute apartment and before you know it I've decided to move home.  The garden that I found to work in this summer is in Taos, NM - a mere 5 hours from home, so it makes sense.  Its not that I CAN'T make it here.  I can, I've proved that.  But I'm to the point where I either decide to put forth a lot of effort and really build a community here and grow some roots, or I move back to a place where I already have some roots and would like to stay for many years.

There's a whole slue of emotions:

First off, of course I'd move back to Colorado Springs (or at least, most likely).  I already have friends there and I feel like anywhere else I'd be too tempted to go and hang out with my friends in The Springs anyway.  And it's a lovely distance from my family.  But I can't start thinking that things are how I left them.  People have moved on.  Edith found a new bass player.  I won't have a roommate.  Or the same job.  Or any of that.  Things have changed.

Which is good.  I'm trying to remember the pitfalls of Colorado Springs.  It is SUPER conservative.  AFA.  Ft. Carson.  Focus on the Family.  All my friends were older: married with kids.  I didn't really have many GOOD friends.  So I'd have to come into it like I was new in town again.  Get out and meet people.  Hopefully my own age.  Hopefully male.  It would take work.

And I'd have to find a job.  Thats the problem with being familiar with the area is I know the down sides to both hospitals - I guess I work where I get hired...  transfer later if I hate it.

What's under my skin right now is my family situation.  I guess I'm pretty disappointed in my sisters since I've moved.  I was hoping that we would stay close.  That they'd realize that it takes effort on both sides.  I hoped for text messages and emails and photos.  And here I am only a year gone and I talk to my sisters maybe once a month - when I call them.  No more drawings from the kids.  Not a lot of anything.  It's like I fell off the face of the planet and they're okay with it.  And I know that if I go back to Colorado Springs they won't ever come to visit me.  I know this because I lived there for 6 years and they came maybe once or twice.  It's only an hour away and they treat it like I'm asking them to fly to North Carolina for the day.  I guess I'm tired of always being the one to make the effort and sacrifice my time and energy.... like I don't matter because I'm not married and don't have kids.  Well fuck that.  Those things aren't handicaps and I hate it when people treat them that way.

So thats kind of the sour taste in my mouth right now.  I don't want to keep feeding this idea that I will always come back to them because if I don't then no one will and then I don't have a family.... I want to feel them care - Care about me.  About where I live.  About who I am outside the very small realm of our family.

BUT I really like the idea of moving again.  I am super pumped about working in a garden this summer. It sounds a bit like a hippie commune, which might be a little much for me, but their operation sounds pretty sweet.  I am really burned out on my job right now and I haven't felt that welcomed by most of my co-workers.  I'm kinda over the whole "southern" mentality, because I really don't understand it most of the time. And I continue to be so fucking lonely, depressed and bored.

So now that I've made my decision I pretty much just want to go right now.  I don't want to keep investing time into a city that I'm about to leave and I'll take any excuse to get me away from this job.  BUT I have obligations thru mid-May and I should really save a little more money...

It feels good to have a decision made and a new adventure on the horizon.  Let the count down begin - 3 months...