I have to admit, since moving to my new apartment, I feel
old. This new place offers the illusion that I’ve got things figured out just
because I live on my own and have my own bedroom. (I still just can’t get over
that: SO blessed to have landed here.) I think part of the influence comes from
the fact that the building itself is quite old, built in 1907, and offers
old-age charm like high ceilings & original plumbing as well as attracts a
wider variety of tenants (as opposed to the hip, new building I was at before).
But really, I come home, make dinner (something I haven’t
had time to do consistently in so long), maybe do the dishes (life without a
microwave or dishwasher is seriously amazing; teaches me to slow down a bit),
watch an episode of something, read, write, record a song, feed the turtle,
walk the dog—any variation of these things. It’s all very “adult”, and I
haven’t figured that out: while most of my peers are going out to bars and
drinking excessively and hooking up with strangers, I’m home pretending to be
better than them because I’m “accomplishing life goals” and can drink a glass
of wine with dinner & be in bed by 10:30 and still get seven hours of
sleep.
Don’t get me wrong: I love this. I think it’s amazing to be
here with so much going on outside and having time and space to write and play
with my dog—but I can’t help but wonder if I’m missing out or at least missing
something. I don’t want what others my age have; I’m not a
get-drunk-on-weeknights kind of person, or really a get-drunk-at-all kind of
person. Admittedly, I haven’t even intentionally gone to a bar yet in the year+
that I’ve been in Seattle (by intentionally, I mean, there are places that I go
to eat that serve alcohol that have a bar in them, but I don’t go there to drink).
So if I can’t keep up the writer’s life without feeling like
I’m missing something, and I’m not a public drinker (sorry, Hem), then what is
it?
I’m starting to get an idea. It’s the road. I miss the road.
I miss having a car and the freedom to just go for a drive and end up somewhere
new and have new experiences outside of the city. There is much to see here, of
course, and I love it, but I don’t always fit in with the city-vibe (one reason
I didn’t move to Capitol Hill, though everyone I know says I’d fit in great
there…). I like to stay home, but I like to adventure beyond the city limits. I
can’t even get to Ikea in my current situation. Further, I’ve also realized
that things like zipcar & car-2-go are out of reach as well because my
phone doesn’t have an app for them (this is soon to change…).
Do I regret selling my car? Not at all: it’s a season.
Though my car was great, it’s been such a blessing to not have to pay for
insurance, worry about parking, continually not afford repairs. It’s also taught
me a lot about dependence—I can’t get everywhere I want to anymore. While I
bike, bus, or walk most places, not everywhere is within reach, so I’ve learned
to depend on others for a ride or borrowing their car for a day or so.
I’m starting to get the feeling, though, that this will not
be a prolonged season. In my journal, I made an oath to myself that I wouldn’t
buy a car until my student loans were paid off. I think I’m a liar because I
don’t think I could go about 5-10 years without road trips or weekend
get-aways. Plus if I go to grad school (God-willing it would be funded, but if
not…) those loans would get bigger, not smaller. In the meantime, my puppy
& I need to go!
I told my sister that if she moved back West, I’d
immediately get a car so I could visit her. (I’m obsessed with roadtrips, and
West-coast drives are so scenic, vast, and variant that I forget that the rest
of the world exists—like when I drove through a snowstorm in Oregon to get to
the dry deserts of Phoenix.)
I also resolved to myself that I would wait to get a car until
I moved to Montana for grad school (why do I make such strange resolutions that
are based on options floating in the air that I have no commitment to?).
Everything is so unpredictable that I can’t keep a single promise to myself
about the future (I really don’t have the final say, thank God).
So here I am: sitting on the couch, as I have been,
admittedly, most of the weekend (the unceasing winter rain makes the couch very appealing) and probably will be tomorrow as well. I’ve
spent my time doing yoga (not on the couch, obviously), reading Pride & Prejudice (which I can’t
spell (pride & prejuice?) and have—for shame— never read before), and
snuggling with my dog with a lavender scented pillow under my head & a
tie-dyed blanket that Katlin made for Derek years ago keeping us warm, as
Pickle’s little (actually large, but as she is still a puppy (and always will
be to me), all of her accounts for “little”) head sticks out above my feet,
warming my toes under her whiskered chin.
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