Summer Street and Magners.

Today I had a bad day. My car troubles are not yet over, despite the fact that I have bought a new one. The old one died, the new one is taking forever to be ready for me to pick up... its a mess. Going to and from work now takes me an hour and a half, but at least I can read on the way I guess. Not so easy when one is driving. ....Not so safe, either.

When the bus got to South Station, I was not yet ready to go home. Home is a bit of a place of mystery at the moment, based upon the ever-changing moods of one particular person, and I needed a few minutes to myself before I could even begin to muster the strength to enter. What to do when near South Station and a few minutes of gather-thy-self-togetherness is needed?

Go to the bridge.

So I did. I walked across the Summer Street bridge, stopping every now and again to look at the water, and then turned around a walked back. The wind blowing in my hair, the smell of salt in the air, the sound of the water below, and Boston's Financial District in the background, I was able to calm myself as I always can do in this spot. My bridge. Despite others who may try to claim it. We can take it outside.

Once home, it was immediately to a bath, a Magners cider, and a book. Finally, I was able to re-enter the world as a functional and pleasant human being. I love having a tub. I love having a bridge. All I need to make now is a head-hug. This is the hug where one arm goes around your waist and another cradles your head - the best kind to make a person feel loved and safe and that everything's going to be OK. Few in this world do this for me without being asked. Soon, I hope I will meet one of them again. For now, to Elora Dannon and dreams I go.

Sitting on the dock of the bay.

I work across the street from the Charles River Reservation. Lately, I've been taking a book and my lunch box out onto the dock for lunch, sitting and eating and reading and watching the river go by. Today a Canada Goose flew across, calling, I thought at first, to himself. Then I heard a voice call back at him from the water. They went through this call and answer routine, the call and answer coming closer and closer to each other until they were finally voicing in unison. This sight in that setting with a relaxed and happy Meg-with-a-book put me into a terribly romantic mood. I think I'm going to find myself watching "Sleepless in Seattle" or something similar when I go home tonight. An interesting mood/situation to find myself when I'm going to have the house to myself tonight. Oh well. When the mood strikes, what other opportunity is there but to follow. Who says you can't have romance alone? =)


....Wow. That sounded far more cynical than I meant it to. Smiles everywhere. And home soon.

Another busy week has passed.

Yesterday marked my first week at the new job. I'm wiped. It's not that I was pushing 40 hours of physically tasking work, mind you. But all of the new information that I need to observe, all of the new processes that I need to learn - I feel like I'm back in school. And since it is getting into late August, that feeling will not be going away soon, I fear.

It is strange, not getting ready to pack up and move on. I've unpacked most of my boxes in the new apartment, and so very much into the later stages of "settling in." And yet, muscle memory tells me that I need to be packing again soon, figuring out what I'll need and what clothes are worth bringing to start the new semester. The semester that's never going to start for me. That's sounds a little melodramatic, I admit, and I don't mean it to. It's just that I have to mentally get myself used to the fact that I'm not going to college this semester. Honestly, I'm glad I'm not. I'm glad I don't have to deal with papers and homework and readings that I only half care about. But I will miss the people like you don't even understand. I already do. I don't quite get how I won't see so many people that I care about several times each week, and in some cases, each day. I know its a transition, and change is good, and believe me, I totally agree. I just wish that the transition and change didn't come with this feeling like I'm not where I'm supposed to be. I can't wait for my birthday. I'm going back to Wes for the event, seeing as I was so sick on my actual 21st. I'll hit up a bar with some friends, end the evening in the Grotto surrounded by my dearest ones, and sleep on some floor of some friend who has yet to be determined. (Any takers?) Then on the way back home, I'll stop at 6-Flags New England and scream my lungs out with my best friend. Then I'll go home. I think that will help. Knowing people are where they are, and that we are still a part of each other's lives despite differences in distance and circumstance.

I think I just have been missing a part of me that needs to feel love and appreciated and respected. Hell, I think I honestly just need a really good hug that doesn't pull away after a a second because it's too hot, or not right now, I'm doing something. Can't wait for my birthday. Gonna be a good on so many levels.

Up at 8:30, tired at 11:00

Yeah. That's me. The life of the party. Got up around 8:30AM because some doofus started what sounded like hammering a tree outside my window. 10 minutes later, he stopped. Too late. He couldn't have waited just another half hour?

On the other hand, I finally got around to organizing the storage space. I moved the "salvageable boxes" (the ones to be used for next time - who seriously thinks about next time now?) to the area that's hardest to get to, and consolidated what's left of my boxes to be sorted later into one small corner. AKA: move the stuff that isn't going to be touched to where it takes effort to get to, and the stuff that I will be needing muchmuch sooner closer to the door. Now you can actually walk in there again. Incredible! Usable space! Whatever will they think of next?

Except that now I'm tired and in about 3 hours will be picked up by E & Z to go hanging out over their place in Providence. Good thing, too, since all three of the boys have taken off for the weekend and the internet is spotchy at best at the moment. I'd have been bored out of my gourd. Thank God for friends who have good music available.

But in the meantime, there is a significant need for a shower and some quality time alone with the quiet and my book. Get out the pillows and the quilt and I am in for a glorious few hours until good friends come to pick me up for some glorious (and much needed) hang out time. Can a weekend get much better?

Getting settled

It's exactly like it sounds. It's slow, it's painful, and it's totally nothing like what you planned. Instead of sitting right now at a desk, I'm sitting at a side table on a floor pillow. Instead of a bed with a headboard and box spring, I'm sleeping on a mattress on a floor. And I love it.

My room is small, in every sense of the word. It is lacking both in square footage and ceiling height. I say it's "me-sized." It's nothing more than I need and everything I wanted all in one. My night table is here with my small pewter lamp, my cedar chest is filled with sheets, extra comforters, and extra blankets for when it finally gets cold enough to need them. My grandmother's dresser is filled with clothes that I use everyday, my clothes for work lie in a shared closet in the room just down the hall, and my long dresses and things lie in another room entirely. My curtains let in tons of natural light yet still let me sleep in, and on the bed is a wonderful quilt with lots of pillows - perfect for late nights reading. It's smaller by far than any other room I've ever had, my books are spread about the house because there isn't the space for them, my closet is filled with narrow shelves of awkward heights, and I enjoy every minute. I read in a book somewhere in which a bedroom was described "as though the character's personality had exploded onto the walls." I don't think we're quite there yet. I'll need to put up a poster or painting or two before that's the case, but I do think that the room is an accurate reflection if who I am right now, and not who I sometimes think I should be. For the first time in a while, this room truly feels like home.

Moving jitters...

Tonight is the last night I'll spend in what I'll always think of as my parent's home. The home I grew up in, spent 14 years laughing, crying, fighting, picking my self again in. I'm moving away tomorrow, they're moving away in a month or so. They're putting on a tag sale for things they're not bringing with me, for things I'm not bringing with me. And its a great adventure. But its also a bit scary and more than a bit overwhelming.

I will be glad to finally be surrounded by my things, to sleep not just in my sheets, but on my mattress, on my bedframe, with my clothes in my dresser. I haven't had that for years now. I don't even think I've slept in my parent's house at all since the summer before my sophomore year of college - three years ago.

It's happy and exciting and I'm starting a whole new chapter in my life. But I'm also realizing how much of an end that last chapter has come to, and its a very strange happening. They say change is good - I say change is good. But this is a lot of change, and its finally hitting me all at once. I hope I'm prepared. I hope I'm ready for the challenges that I'm purposefully setting up for myself. I hope any mistakes I make are lessons I can learn from.

Because ready or not, its coming.