Tag Archives: Oregon

December 2, 2010 · 10:22

A limited color wheel…

It took a break from words to begin to understand what happened.  That knowing where things went wrong – whether at my own hands or actions – well, was a lesson I needed to learn.  That every error in judgment did indeed lead up to something.  I am happy to finally understand what that something is now.

The world is seemingly changing colors again.  Though you and I may argue what those colors are, and yes, I still see the world as markedly black and white, those shades of gray that I had battled with are now fading or darkening into something that makes sense.  I simply spent too long trying to change it.  I tried to alter my world rather than let it be what it is.  And I must say, it is the heaviest sigh of relief to not try so hard anymore.

My quiet little life, what I had struggled so hard for and traveled thousands of miles to discover, is no longer at my fingertips but ever present.  I have exactly what I wanted and before I could even make brisk or meager attempts to harness that (again), it was here.  My morning cup of coffee, alone on my front porch overlooking the business people traveling their morning commute or buying their cup of coffee from a local vendor, is what I look forward to every day.  To have something to look forward to – whether it be that cup of coffee or a job that finds the slightest of fulfillment – is what I had been missing.  I had overlooked the simplest of things.  Go figure, I had to make a production out of life to find the pure joy of coffee.  It won’t be the last time I do it, but it will be the last time I cause a scene about it.

Over the holiday last weekend, I spent my time at Mr. Asshole’s house.  I was sitting outside one morning with that same cup of coffee, minus the city traffic and noise, and as I watched Skordo run a muck in the yard, I knew that with the exception of the ever-missing presence of my mother, this was what I had forgotten to prioritize in my life.  Those little things go overlooked, and suddenly, the great buttresses that are the structural base of your life begin to crumble until there is nothing left to hold dear and sturdy.  I wish I didn’t know why they were forgotten before but I know the answer to that.  You know the answer to that.  But we learn something from errors in judgment.  It’s just a matter of what you do with that information.

I sit here now, finishing that morning cup of coffee knowing that the remainder of the day, my phone may very well ring from only two people, my mother and Mr. Asshole, and I am OK with that.  I may have had a little pity party last night eating dinner alone at a restaurant while families enjoyed their meals and children sang along to the Christmas carols playing as background music, but I won’t let that get the best of me.  That is not a shade of gray to be argued with.  My solitude is as black and white as it may appear.  I fought for too long to alter the shades of the world.  Now it’s time to just let it be what it wants to be.  This time, I will welcome the element of surprise.

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September 17, 2010 · 14:37

The lost August…

If given the opportunity to look back and reconsider the moves, Berlin, random places of employment, and buying a dog, I wonder what I would have changed.  A conversation over lunch today with a dear friend of mine made me question if this has all been moving full circle, or have I spent the past two years waiting for light at the end of the tunnel.  That light is quickly approaching and finally, for the first time in two years, I know without any uncertainty of heart, I am doing the right thing.

Would I have moved to Florida if I had known I would turn around and drive right back in 11 months?  Probably not.  Was it worth it?  Well, the monetary aspect – not so much, but the benefit of moving far outweighed the financial clinch it slightly strangled me with.  Did I need to spend a year living in humidity to realize Oregon is perfect?  Nope.  Absolutely not.  But did I go because something here was hindering any sense of progress and sheepishly, like a child, did I run home to my mother?  Yes.  Yes I did.  Was that right?  Not for all 24-year-old women, but for this one it was necessary.

Then comes the question of Berlin.  It’s hard to give any fair assessment of what happened now as I am still living with a sense of confusion.  I know what happened, I know where things took a turn for an unreasonable amount of frustration and pain.  But if I could go back and change the one thing that set us into distance and strangers, would I?  Was that broken heart a risk worth taking?  Or was I simply a fragile heart traveling naively into territory that was not mine to walk in?  Albeit a brief moment of belonging, did that moment overshadow a year of my life?  To answer those questions sequentially, it probably looks something like this: no, yes, yes, and yes.  Maybe Berlin was strictly there to be my muse.  And I think that’s where I have kept him.

There was a month of absence from writing that I’m sure was noticed.  Over lunch, that absence was discussed, though the conversation had been had during that month, it furthered over gyros.  Why didn’t I write?  Here is your answer: I sunk into a depression that was so foreign to me, to even begin to explain it would only increase a level of frustration and make it even more real.  I tried to hide it, hide myself, and I am pretty sure I hardly left my apartment for four weeks.  Was it necessary?  Yes.  And finally when I came out of my coma, though into a brighter and louder world than I had remembered, it was better.  I was simply scared and I had nothing to be afraid of.  I was afraid of sharing it with anyone and kept it my own secret.  My world suddenly struck a daemon that was meant to be handled quietly and alone.  Mission accomplished.

Then comes the light at the end of the tunnel.  A month ago, I was miserable.  I knew what I wanted and it was a matter of finding that one thing, that one person willing to take a chance and give me the opportunity I had so desired.  Well, it happened.  Light is near.  Come January, my world will be a very different place.  However unusual and foreign it will be to me, I will remind myself of the lost August and what failed to happen then.  And if ever presented with a lost month again, I will not allow for it to stifle the one thing that keeps me.

We, however, are not prisoners. No traps or snares are set about
us, and there is nothing which should intimidate or worry us.
We are set down in life as in the element to which we best
correspond, and over and above this we have through thousands of
years of accommodation become so like this life, that when we
hold still we are, through a happy mimicry,scarcely to be
distinguished from all that surrounds us. We have no reason to
mistrust our world, for it is not against us. Has it terrors,
they are our terrors; has it abysses, those abuses belong to us;
are dangers at hand, we must try to love them. And if only we
arrange our life according to that principle which counsels us
that we must always hold to the difficult, then that which now
still seems to us the most alien will become what we most trust
and find most faithful. How should we be able to forget those
ancient myths about dragons that at the last moment turn into
princesses; perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses
who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps
everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless
that wants help from us.

Rainer Maria Rilke

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August 26, 2010 · 12:50

Fearless or fearful…

As a repeat victim of identity theft, I wonder how much we should make available of ourselves online.  If you read the last blog, you are probably wondering what I am not willing to put online.  Certain things I am not ashamed of, even more so if they raise a valid point.  Well, my friend challenged me.  She won.

Once you hit your mid-twenties, dating becomes a bit more challenging I have noticed.  My best friend (aptly titled the BFF from here on out as I am not that witty with monikers before 2pm) has some serious balls.  I have complained about this before (yes…whined, complained, bitched) that as we age, the market gets slimmer and slimmer and opportunities to meet new people are not as easy as being drunk in college, class, or walking down a campus street.  Yes, we live in Portland.  Yes, we both have jobs (though I refuse to date customers – won’t happen.  Ever.) that could open up a dating pool.  And yes, we live ‘active’ social lives.  Her social life is a bit more vibrant than mine as again, I am lacking her fearless set of balls of going to a bar alone to have dinner and BAM! – she meets someone new this week.  Love her.  Admire her.  And am often in fear of her.

So we (excuse me, she) decided to try online dating.  OK, let me be clear about my opinion of online dating: it scares the absolute shit out of me.  Yes, I have Facebook and a very dormant MySpace page.  I have a blog.  I online shop (though am fearful of it now due to the recent identity theft).  I google map my life pretty much.  At any given moment, I can find what I want online.  In conversation with customers a few weeks ago, we wanted to know how meth is made (not for personal consumption but to see exactly what the process is and why crack-heads are so nimble).  I grab my faulty Blackberry Storm and within a minute, the “recipe” was in hand.    I don’t want to put my height online, have to classify my weight as either slim/slender or athletic (I run, but I also eat?).  I don’t want someone to already know what I absolutely despise or love for that matter.  I want to have something to talk about over our first coffee together.  Dear gods of the internet, I love you, just not enough to try dating through you.  The BFF is again the woman in charge and she gives it a shot.  I sign up on the same website though avoid putting a picture up, don’t even fill out the ‘about me’ page or even the ‘looking for’ section as I know I am not even window shopping here.  This is research.  She on the other hand is shopping.  Go to town.  She has a couple of dates over the course of a few weeks and though skeptical of the realm of online dating, has proven so far to be victorious.

What did I find?  Well, as this was far from shopping, I just wanted to see what was out there.  If I were in the market for someone much older than I who enjoys long walks on the beach and taking the sailboat out on the weekends all the while discussing his markedly rising cholesterol level, then I would have absolutely scored.  The pickings are slim if you are picky, fearful, and cautious to the notion of online dating.  It made me wonder though, are we there yet?  Are we at the age when it is time to settle down and find someone rather than play the field, play hard to get?  Is the party over and we should resort of the fact that shit, we are adults now and maybe we should start dating them?  Or at least like them?

I look back before I could even drive and I remember what I thought life would be like.  I had always figured I would be married (Young Mary, you almost did it), have a child, and would never have spent a year living with your mother in South Florida amidst Yankee hell.  But I was naive, and I am probably better for it.  I know now that children will never be in the cards for me and I am content with that.  I recognize certain parts of the country are not designed for this Oregon blood, and when in picking a date, I should not approach it as I do shoe shopping.  Though beautiful and tall, they are going to seriously hurt and are not appropriate for dancing or long-term wear.

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July 1, 2010 · 21:30

Now what…

There are parts of this that I am still adjusting to.  It’s strange to be in this city again.  It’s shocking, cold, joyful, and more than often surreal.  I found my umbrella after unpacking one of the last boxes and have yet to use it (determined to maintain my Real Oregonians Don’t Use Umbrellas stance).  I continue to get in the wrong lane when crossing the ever confusing and terrifying bridges.  My sense of direction is still backwards as I am once again used to the ocean being on the opposite side of where it presently is.  Maybe someday I will stay in one place long enough to make sense of that…

It feels like home though.  I have one box left to unpack (surround sound speakers).  With the exception of that cord ridden box, I am home and settled.  And it’s strange.  A spoiled me.  This is the first time in over a year that I have spent time constructing a grocery list.  I can’t remember the last time I bought cleaning supplies (and actually cleaned…).  And true to my sheer luck with plumbing, I have already had to call a plumber twice.  On a totally unrelated side note, if your toilet is ever clogged to the point of desperation, I’m your girl.  I felt like Wonder Woman today.

I walked into my quirky apartment tonight and sighed a breath of relief.  Home. To be surrounded by my things again – the stuff I have now schlepped across this country twice and to the tune of a few thousand unnecessary dollars – is more welcoming than I ever remembered.  Maybe it was because the last time I used these dishes, organized and alphabetized the plethora of books, or slept in my sheets was when I was living with the ex.  These things are all mine again and no one else is telling me to move something, redecorate and accessorize with blue or a Go Ducks! poster (insert massive cringe), and if the shower decides it doesn’t want to turn off and after excessive turning of the handle, erupts into a fountain of steaming hot water all over a fully clothed Mary, well, it’s my problem now.  And yes, that happened.  Three weeks ago.  Someday I will tell you the story of an old apartment that one night decided to have a waterfall of laundry water.  Complete with steam.

Just to be still again is better than I ever remembered.  I remember the last time I lived here running around this city, constantly moving.  This has been quiet so far this time around and I would sooner unclog a toilet than disrupt that.  Before I moved to Florida, I remember being in this great search of simplicity and calm.  Turns out, I didn’t have to trek across the country (twice) to find that.  All I had to do was move above the nicest Egyptian family and their Mediterranean restaurant to find it.  My grandfather has never been more proud of my living situation as he is now.  Go figure…plant the Greek girl above Greek food, work for Greeks and boom!  She’s happy.  Shocking…

Now comes the hard part though.  No, I refuse to complicate my little existence with an unnecessary distraction (and all the implications there could be).  It’s trying to make sense and plan the next battle and step.  I started writing this blog to chronicle my move.  Turns out, that move quickly turned into a pluralized notion.  But now that I am here, what now?  Where do I go with this?  With all of it: me, life, partners (still a nauseating notion), and parking.  This is a strange shift in my identity and while I am welcoming the alteration, I feel I am proceeding with more caution than I ever have before.  Still though, I find myself asking the same question every night before I fall asleep:  what now?

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June 20, 2010 · 20:26

“Push in the clutch!”

Father’s Day has never been as hard as one would have expected it to be.  I’m sure it’s hard on my mother.  I’m sure it’s difficult for my family to think of but for me, it has never been that stinging.  Just because he hasn’t been around, doesn’t mean that someone else hasn’t been.  I still don’t want to talk about him today.  We talked about him enough a few months ago.  There is someone else I would rather give homage to, and a man far deserving of it.

On the previous About Me page, I briefly mentioned that I have been fortunate enough to have a handful of great men to step in and take over the void that was left when my own father passed away.  These great men – family friends, my orchestra conductor growing up, and my old boss at a small coffee shop in Corvallis – all have played instrumental roles in my life.  They have all given me those wise ‘fatherly’ bits of wisdom and at times crude humor.  I have cried with these men, screamed bloody murder at a few, and was even taught how to give a proper hug by one.  These are some great men.  And they had some massive shoes to fill.

One in particular though is the man who I describe as the man who raised me.  I’m sure I could come up with a better moniker for him, but to be honest, this is rather fitting.  For now, I am going to call him the Asshole.  Excuse me, Mr. Asshole.  He is far from one, though he often believes himself to be.  He would probably curse me a bit for sharing the fact that he is indeed kind and giving, and I have even seen him cry.  Once.

This was the man who taught me how to drive.  My mother had made an attempt at it but needless to say, her white knuckles did not bode well for my 15-year-old “I’M AN ADULT, MOM!” hormones and he quickly separated We Burger Women before one of us ended up buried next to my father.  He was patient, understanding, gave all commands in German (which I now give to other people when giving directions), and never yelled when I stalled and lurched trying to make the clutch and gas move in some semblance of smooth, forward motion.  I got the hang of it and I owe it all to him.  Well, far more than that actually.

I keep pictures of Mr. Asshole and me in my apartment next to pictures of my father.  We are never smiling in these pictures and that is quite fitting of us.  We have shared our glory moments of laughter together (mostly at my mother’s expense) but only one piece of evidence exists of this and that photo is lurking in Florida at my mother’s house.  I think it is a bizarre sense of understanding we share between us.  If I didn’t know the difference, I could swear to you that this man is my father.  And when people mistakenly ask if I am his daughter in introduction, I take a sense of pride in it.

He is much of the reason I moved back to Oregon.  The best day I have had so far was with him in Corvallis.  We sat in the yard and watched our dogs run laps, chasing their tails.  I remember sitting back and staring at this man knowing that though I am not even remotely close to the time zone that my nearest biological family lives, I have one of the best parts of my family here.  If he ever leaves, I may chase after him.  He has become a part of me and the past decade would have been a dull existence if it weren’t for him.  It takes one strong man to keep me in line but he has managed to do it and stick around for these great ten years.  I may be the source of a few (hundred) gray hairs on his head, and he is at times the source of angst ridden phone calls to my mother.  Yes, he is an asshole but he is my Mr. Asshole. So to you, Happy Asshole’s Day.

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June 16, 2010 · 22:52

A tangent of unnecessary sorts…

Ever so slightly, this is beginning to feel like life again.  The vacation is over.  Employment has begun and the boxes are dwindling to a few scattered towers that may as well say ‘find home for me’.  I forgot how much stuff I have.  Simply that – stuff.  But this is it.  This was everything I had asked for.

Before I moved, I had a customer in Florida tell me that home is not going to be as good as I had remembered or even expected.  Well, this man was right.  I am not going to sit here and say it is better because that would be dripping in sarcasm.  There have been moments marked with tears and questions.  I have sat in my apartment, staring at the boxes wondering what have I gotten myself into.  I have wondered if this is even right.  Then today happened just to remind me why I moved back here.

I started work.  Great.  Splendid.  I am slowly creeping into a routine and though it is not my ideal schedule (mornings…), it feels as life is beginning.  It certainly relieves a great deal of stress knowing that rent will be paid, shoes can be purchased, and Skordo will have a new bag of food to eat.  But with employment and a new schedule comes something I had forgotten about: the joy of not being at work.  Tonight, I had that aha! moment.

As work ended tonight, I knew Skordo would be itching for a long walk.  A dear friend of mine called as I was leaving said place of employment and as she and I both have dogs, we decided to take the pups for a run tonight.  Well, my running is sorely out of shape as I am even more out of shape but we tried.  Either way, all it took was running down Naito Parkway along the riverfront to remind me why I came home.  And as we walked the dogs the last leg through the blocks of downtown, climbing our way back to my apartment, a semblance of home and accomplishment washed over me.  This was right.  The boxes were worth it.  The tears were worth it.  This damn city is perfect.  And the year away from here was ever so necessary.

I moved to Florida to accomplish something, we all know that.  Well, it took three days of being home to finally know without a shred of uncertainty of heart to know that this body of mine is no longer feeling the weight of Berlin wading through its bones.  Even after seeing him and possibly shedding an unnecessary tear (I haven’t the slightest clue where the waterworks come from but I will embrace this change of heart and show of emotion), I know that wall is no longer a part of me.  I tore my own wall down and finally forced his out.

But back to today after my excessively truncated tangent of a sorely unnecessary night in my life (though freeing, I must say).  I am home.  It finally feels real.  And as I sit here typing these words, I can glance up, see the city lights out of the many windows of my apartment, and know this is what was supposed to happen.  As alone and strange as it feels, just to sit barefoot at my table, a cup of green tea at my side, Skordo on my feet, and Olive perched in her window, reminds me to never lose sight of this again.  I had my Gretel moment.  I scattered the breadcrumbs of what I could have sworn to be irrevocably broken, only to gather them up one last time simply to say I am home.  The next time this heart breaks, I’ll invest further in vacuums, less moving equipment.

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June 12, 2010 · 21:44

Static interference…

Home.  In Oregon.  Again.  Let’s see if I can start this over.

I could sit here and write the emotions of the drive, the feelings and tears I shed when my heavily caffeinated body crossed the Oregon border, and the cursing words out of my mouth when I arrived in Portland, smack in the middle of rush hour.  I won’t though.  Briefly, I will give you a recap of the last week and a half of my life:

Tuesday June 1:  Pulled over by a state trooper 20 miles into Oregon.  I am (and I quote) charming.  Arrived in Portland.  Flipped the bird to a few drivers then realized this is not South Florida.  Note to self: must be nice again.  I’M HOME!!!  It’s cold…

Wednesday:  I’M HOME!!!  It’s cold…

Thursday:  I’M HOME!!!  I’m still cold…

Friday:  I’M HOME!!!  It’s cold and raining…

Saturday:  I’M HOME!!!  Where are my movers?  I want my socks.

Sunday:  Moving company gets an earful.  I try and to no avail.  Must allocate a raincoat.

Monday:  Holy shit, I live here.  I need a job…

Tuesday:  This futon is killing my back.

Wednesday:  Must.  Find.  Employment.

Thursday:  Moving company finally makes contact (a further post will describe in great detail my contempt towards this company and the scathing complaint the South Florida Better Business Bureau will be receiving).  Saturday or Sunday.  No more camping with internet, electricity, and my (lifesaving) landlord’s microwave and dishes.

Friday:  Still raining in Oregon…packed wrong clothes.  I must have been more of a Floridian than I thought.  Employment?  Please?

So that’s it in a nutshell.  Here I am, writing on the floor of my apartment, Skordo asleep on the murderous futon (at least someone enjoys it), and Olive perched on the window sill behind me.  There is a lone lamp on the floor.  A bookshelf to my left with not a single book but a candle, Buddha statue, and my other laptop.  The walls are blank but they are mine.  Tomorrow, this place will be a nightmare of liquor boxes.  I will sleep on a bed again – my bed.  My books will make their way back to shelves that I will yet again put back together.  Lamps will be placed on tables and my savior – my landlord – will have his dishes, spare microwave, and blanket returned to him.  But Saturday?  Where did Saturday go?  Still in it, and I wanted more than a nutshell of Jack Frost description.

I went home today.  Yeah, I know…I am home, but not home home.  As I found myself wide awake at 5 this morning, walking Skordo against the brisk Oregon morning chill, I decided I needed to get out of town for a day.  I packed him in the car, locked the cat in the bathroom (even though I hate the futon, I still have to sleep on it tonight and sure don’t want to sleep on cat piss.  Again), and began to drive south.  As I crossed the bridge into Corvallis, a flood of old memories hit me like a force of bricks.  I didn’t cry, but I did choke back a lump.  I don’t know what this move or past year has done to me but for some reason, I will cry now.  The secret is out – I have a heart.

I drove the streets I learned to drive on, passed the school where I had my first kiss, had coffee with my surrogate family, and finally made my way to the house of the man that raised me.  I was in need of something familiar today.  He gave that to me.  Simply put, this is the best man in the world.

As we sat in his backyard, our dogs chasing each other until they were panting in the wading pool, I realized this was the right decision.  I knew the simplicity of excitement could overbear the clear and present path and maybe have interfered with the difference of right and wrong.  Not now though.  Not this move.  Not this time.  This was finally right.  At last.  As much static plagued my life in Portland the first time, it won’t be a cause of disruption or interference this time.  I’m home and this is mine.  I am alone for the first time in over two years and it is strange but this solitude is welcoming.  There is an air of simplicity right now in that I have nothing here other than this room of random stuff and my animals.  There is a vacancy in my heart where once love stood so proud.  It’s strange the reflection between heart and walls now.  I may very well miss these blank walls come tomorrow…but I won’t leave them blank.

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May 23, 2010 · 04:52

A smile a day…

I have been waking up early.  Maybe it is to sit on our lake at its calmest of moments.  Maybe it’s to spend the extra few minutes with my mother.  Maybe my body is truly adjusting to sleeping pills (yes, they’re back), or maybe I just want to hear Florida when she is still quiet; before the sounds, sirens, and freeways awaken in all their assaulting fury.  This is my favorite part of the day here.  And this, I will miss.

Yesterday was my mother’s birthday.  My dear mother and I spent a fantastic day together.  We are certainly trying to spend as much time together over this next week as we can as a week from today, I will be somewhere in the middle of the nation, crossing over timezones and driving further and further away from her.  It will be strange.

I’m sure it will all settle in quickly and it will make sense.  I have forgotten what it is like to be away from her.  We did this for years though.  Four years actually.  I grew accustomed to life in airports, shuttling my well-traveled luggage through security, making sure to wear flip-flops when flying, and reminding myself on the morning of flight days to not wear an under-wire bra (December 2001, Washington Dulles Airport, very awkward search involving heavily armed National Guardsmen…).  All in all, it is back to We Burger Women acquiring an unnecessary amount of frequent flier miles in order to see each other.  How did it get like this anyway?  Well, I will tell you the story of my remarkable mother…

Five year ago, my mother was living in Oregon.  I had been out of the house for a couple of years and my mother’s life began to resemble something of a lonely routine.  She was happy but would be the first person to tell you that something was missing.  On a moderately planned whim for a milestone birthday, my mother flew out here as a birthday gift to herself.  In joking conversation with the company she came to visit, they asked if she wanted a job and she said sure.  Mind you, this was all in good humor and smiles.  Sure enough though, less than six months later, that same conversation would turn into reality and employment and my mother would quit her job in Oregon, sell her house, and move here all in less than six weeks.  Let me tell you what a whirlwind feels like.  It was strange.  And she was gone to try something new in an unfamiliar place where she knew absolutely no one.  Sound familiar?

It was in that six week period that I began to look at my mother with different eyes.  Finally, we grew up and we let each other go.  She knew she needed to leave in order to further her life, and I knew I needed space (not necessarily a continent) to begin that process of self discovery and getting really drunk in college without seeing her everyday.  My mother became this ballsy woman to me, something she had never been before.  She flat out said when she quit her job in Oregon I am going to move to Florida, I am going to get that job, and I am going to be happy. I rolled my eyes to her at the time.  I knew my mother, or I thought I did.  I knew that she would change her mind and stay put.  But it came as no surprise on moving day when I was the only one choking on my own words, swallowing a fountain of tears.  And there she was, smiling with the brightest and most hopeful of (dry) eyes I have ever seen her wear.  She had a plan.

Five years later, I could not say with enough words how proud of her I am.  She took a leap and maybe with just the slightest bit of luck, did everything she wanted to do.  I have never seen this woman happier in my adult life.  I am going to miss that smile everyday.  I never thought I would thank her for moving here, but to be honest, I must do so.  Being the educator that she is, she gave me one last lesson – a challenge if you will.  You’re on, A.

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May 17, 2010 · 06:13

To write a life…

I remember when I was little, I had an idea.  My idea was that if I moved away everything would be perfect.  Everything would make sense.  Everything would be better.  All I had to do was leave Oregon.  Oh Little Mary, you were a silly girl.

I was six years old when I first moved away from Oregon.  It was right after my father had died and my mother and I moved to Washington D.C. to be closer to her family.  We spent two amazing years there before moving back to Oregon.  D.C. will always be considered some strange idea of home, as Oregon has always been.  Once we moved home though, I spent the next 16 years fighting to leave.  It took me 14, but I finally left Corvallis.  Once I left Corvallis, I felt right – like this was what I had been missing all along.  Then I left Portland for here.  You know that story though…you know why I left.  Now let’s get to the fun part of why I am going home…and it’s not what you think.

Every time I move away from somewhere, I know myself well enough to know I am running.  I do this, I get that.  I burn enough bridges to the point that I cannot fathom a day in that world anymore.  I haven’t done that here.  Aside from quitting my job in a fashion that I am in no sense of the word proud of, I am not leaving a stone here unturned and am leaving life exactly how it was when I arrived.  OK, only a bit more tan, with a few extra pounds on (A, we need to stop eating brownies), and a heart that isn’t clenching in despair.  I finally wrote a life out that I have been proud of.  I was honest.  I was fair.  I was oddly mature about men (maybe my cynicism is getting the best of me but quite frankly, nothing here was enough to impress me…or keep me here) and was able to walk away when I knew it time.

When the time came to move here, we all know that I moved because my heart was broken…blah, blah, blah.  Noted.  Got it.  But when it came down to the wire and I was forced to make a decision about the next great move, whether it be Key West, Oregon, Maine, or Washington D.C., I made the decision with a level head, an empty heart, and the clearest of mind.  It may have very well been the first time I have ever done that.  Never once has there not been a man pulling me somewhere – in heart, action, presence, or simply memory.  Nothing.  There is nothing there.  It is a strange void but that void was what I needed to finally, at long last, make a decision for myself.  So home it is.  Oregon home that is.  Portland – in all of its majestic beauty – you won.  I don’t know if I am much of a prize but you are getting me back.  I promise you, I will give you the best of me this time.  I won’t try to burn down the St. Johns bridge as I had so vehemently attempted our last time around.

So why Oregon?  Aside from instate tuition, the great mountains, Pacific, my friends, strange little family, and a streetcar that makes me happier than A’s brownies, it came down to this:  it made sense.  I have never been happier than when I was in Oregon.  I have never been more miserable either but let’s face it, that is bound to happen anywhere.  I didn’t try last time.  I lead a life that could make anyone take brownies for granted (hormones are getting the best of me today).  I could make a life for my animals and me anywhere and be happy now, I have figured out how to do that, but the only place I want to do that now is home.  My home.  My rainy, Christmas tree stamped home.  Palm trees, you aren’t cutting it just yet.  Maybe when I reach the age of enlightenment/retirement, I will come back here and die in this humidity ridden state, but I’m sure not there yet.

To Florida, thank you for allowing me in your state for the past 11 months.  You have been, well, interesting.  Thank you for furthering me, for pushing me to better myself, and for showing me who I really am, and what I really want.  Also, thanks for letting me win a bet.  I did not get plastic surgery.  My friend, you owe me $20.

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May 15, 2010 · 07:36

And we’re off…

A friend of mine left me an interesting comment the other day.  While he pointed out the obvious, I feel there are parts of my story missing in it…the parts I never felt the need to address before.  Yes, I needed to grow up.  Maybe that’s why I moved here.  Yes, I felt life to be a mundane existence hence fleeing from a broken heart to try something new.  And yes, I have made some decisions in the past that I am not so proud of but I will never say I regret them.  They all lead me to something, whether that something be something new, a better person within, or simply learning from an ill-fated action.  So where now?

I will open this by saying that I have a fever of 100.4 right now.  I quit my job yesterday and I feel this may be karma biting me in the ass.  If my words end up being a bit on the jibberish side, well, my head and throat are on fire and Skordo is testing my nerves to the extreme right now.  Onward march though…

I am moving home earlier than initially planned.  This is starting to parallel my move here in the sense of I had made a plan to leave on one date and ended up leaving early.  Am I running again?  Not this time.  Moving here, I absolutely did.  We already know that.  Leaving here though, I have nothing to run from.  I lived a life here that I am strangely proud of.  I grew up in a manner at which was entirely necessary, and finally, I took a few risks.  I did things I never thought I would.  I took that playing safe card and threw it out the window.  And you know what?  It didn’t break me.

Last week, I encountered an opportunity to be outside of myself a little bit.  Maybe that ended up leading to the progression of my new-found set of balls, but I took a few risks.  And at the end of each action, I found myself smiling.  I did what was right for me, I took care of myself in a way the Year Ago Mary would not have, and I had some fun.  I suppose I played my ‘risk worth taking’ game again.  I like that game though.  I didn’t win.  I didn’t lose.  I finally enjoyed.

Off we go now though into the great abyss of packing, boxes, allocating housing (my two new least favorite words:  breed restrictions…Skordo is a damn cat), and prepping my car (and my sanity) for the great drive again.  Maybe I continue to tell myself this is right because there is a part of me that can’t quite believe it.  Maybe I am still trying to motivate myself to do any of this, but I certainly set the ball in motion yesterday.  Or maybe, I simply am ready to start over again.  Either way, something beautiful will come out of all of this.  I am curious to know what that something beautiful is.

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