Moving on

It's been a while again. 

I'm sitting at my parents' kitchen table in my hometown after a full few days spending time with friends and family and my dog. We are moving to Montana. I say it out loud to people & it sounds like someone else's words. We are moving to Montana and everything is changing now. Everything seems to be moving, shifting, growing bigger, getting smaller, working its way around all by itself. I'm here for the ride. 

Leaving Alexandria and the D.C. area has been more difficult than I imagined it would be. The places that carve you out do seem to fill you back up in the end. When I first made the move, I was many things: afraid, tired, depressed, hesitant, on the whole saying that I wanted to be happy and in reality not doing much to cultivate it myself. Cue life and its ways of keeping you honest. 

My apartment building was comprised of a group of (mostly) women who were supportive, encouraging, fun, determined, and intentional about life and getting the most out of it. Months went by when I spoke to them only in passing - at the mailbox, by the car - until the day they extended a warm invitation into their friendship. Each time spent hanging out built upon the one before until a sisterhood grew around me and my life felt lighter than it had in weeks. These women counseled me about love, career choices, standing up yourself, playing a mean game of shuffleboard and being genuine. Opening up to people and keeping myself open has long been a struggle of mine, but with their patient friendship I was able to keep practicing, to keep myself honest, to maintain. This group of women was the reward for vulnerability. It is a risk worth taking every time. Until our paths cross again, I will miss them. I will miss the sounds, smells, and familiarity of our little apartment - the home I had to earn. 

The day that I was leaving, as I was taking out my last bag of trash, I saw one more familiar friend. George. 

Seth met George when he first moved to Alexandria. George had grown up in Del Ray before it was gentrified, back when it was "rougher than we would recognize." George had a hobby car garage across the street from our building and we would often shoot the breeze with him after work or grocery shopping. He helped Seth with our cars and we would make him cookies. A neighborhood friendship in the truest sense. I felt my heart swell as George sought me out for a final farewell on my last day. We exchanged phone numbers, and I told him that we will send him a Christmas card - a promise that George and I are adamant that I keep. George is a soft soul in this world, evidence of generosity regardless of means, a reminder to give what you have while you can. One of the universe's teachers I am grateful to have met along the way. 

I guess that's what I needed to sit down and write to get at - relationships were the key to allowing Alexandria to become home. Human connection can never be underestimated in its power for positivity. As we prepare to move to Montana, my intention is not only to leave myself open to  possibilities, but to create them. To make it feel like home a hell of a lot sooner and to choose the happy (winter be damned).