Why I Quit Adulting (And Why You Should, Too)

In so many places, society rewards "hard workers" and everyone pretends to be one. It's not okay to miss work because you need a day to be a human. You have to be sick, but not just casually sick because that would imply that you could work through your sickness. You have to have one foot in the ER and one in the grave and your doctor has to make a really concerning face and tell you not to go to work for a week. That's how sick you have to be: one day doesn't do it. You need a week. Or you have to die or lose a limb. I remember when Grams died, one of my co-workers thought it was "strange" that I took three days off, not knowing that I had to make food for the showing, organize my entire family, go through her belongings. I was sleeping maybe three hours a night and I could've easily taken a week off and still had things to do. But work should've been more important. I should've taken one day and got back to it. And people reward that behavior with, "Wow you're so strong! You're so tough! You're such a hard worker!" That's the mentality and it's nuts. Kill yourself emotionally and physically for a job. It's more important than family, friends, fun, and health.

Look, I can work hard. I'd just rather bounce around and eat ice cream. I don't think that makes me lazy. I think that makes me really smart and brave for saying that out loud because that's what you want, too.

Everyone says "work hard, play hard" but I disagree. I think everyone really could work medium and play way more. Playing extra hard doesn't mean "going up on a Tuesday," it just means that framing your life around play is a powerful concept. Follow me yet or do you think I need to grow up and get a real job?

It's okay. Sometimes I find myself thinking the same thing. But the thing with this unlearning process is that I am constantly yelling at that part of my brain.

Get a real job. I have one and it's becoming a better human!
Make more money. Do I really need more money? And when I get more money, will that be enough then? Or are we all just addicted to idea of more money?
Have a kid! You're getting old! No. Maybe someday but not now. And I'm not old! I'm younger than I've ever been.
Buy a house. You're thirty and wasting money renting! Do I really need to own a house? Do I really want to pay for a new water heater when it dies? Do I even know where I want that house to be? 

So my journey right now is attempting to prioritize playing outside, and making that the best thing I can do as a human. Working just supports that. Think about what would happen if everyone prioritized a simple, wildly fun outdoor activity. 

Remember when you dreamed of adventure as a kid? I wanted to go to space. I had absolutely no idea what that entailed, I just wanted to float around and eat that astronaut ice cream. Not a lot has changed. But for a long time, I thought it had to.

It's taken me years to get to the place where it's okay to prioritize fun. I used to fold myself into this business casual person that tried, but really didn't attend to the wrinkles in her trousers. There was that Ann Taylor version of myself that I had held for my thirties that never really stuck. I tried. But it always felt like a costume.  

Costumes can be fun. But playing dressup only suits me when it's my choice and it doesn't happen often. When I have to dress up for work, I feel like I'm playing a character. Like I'm totally Dagwood Bumstead. 

Thirty meant something when I was twenty. I had all these preconceived notions about what thirty would look like, borrowing heavily from my mother's life. Being twenty something was about "finding yourself" and then you find you! And then you buy a house, have some kids, pay attention to the quality of your shoes and carve out a nice little life and be in the same place long enough to know your neighbors.

Except I am nowhere near living the life of my mother. And I think that's probably okay.

But what I cannot forgive is that I'm thirty and I'm just now facing all these crazy questions and I'm letting myself struggle with them. What am I supposed to do with my life? And an even scarier question: Will I ever get to the point where I will definitively know? And if the answer is no,  is it okay to be okay with that? And if the answer is "exactly what you're doing: enjoy every breath," and has nothing to do with my occupation, how long will it take to actually accept that answer, unconditionally?

It is so easy to start piling up adult responsibilities so I don't have to face these questions. These questions are hard. They take courage to face. Sometimes I want to quit, buy a house and think about stock market stuff. "Adulting" is easier socially because it's fitting in with what thirty year olds are expected to do. Settle down. Have a baby. It's an easy diversion and what is expected and completely great and wonderful if that's truly what you want. And I'm not sure it's what I want. But it's what I always go back to when I'm unsure and scared and way too focused on the future.

But my friend Willie Nelson told me, "Time will take care of itself, so just leave time alone," and I think it's time I start listening to that man.

Sometimes I feel like the best thing I can do is have fun, laugh a lot, make sure I'm really enjoying every minute I can, and other times I feel unfocused, like I'm wasting time, like if I sat down for a second and updated my resume and really gave the job search a good college try, I'd be in a better position. But sometimes there's nothing better than having that feeling of a never ending good day outside on the slopes, playing softball, hiking with good friends, not even having a thought about laundry, 401Ks, presentations or groceries. It's all about fun. And it's possible until you die.

When I waver on "work sometimes, play always," it's because I let that old mentality of working hard and being professionally successful as being the number one ultimate goal thing creep in. But who is that profiting? So I can pay down my perpetual student loan sooner? Who cares? Since when did we willingly give up belly laughs and all day smiles to be more financially "responsible"? Since when did we give up playing outside till dusk when the streetlights came on so we could sit in our armchairs and sulk about how rough Monday is going to be? We traded in our grass stained jeans to iron our work slacks and for what? How does this make sense?

I get that you can have both. I get that having a house and kids can be a great source of fun and happiness. I get that jobs can be fun, that you can have a job that you work hard at and also have a lot of good times. And maybe I will get there someday. But right now, I'm not focused on that road, and I refuse to do something I'm expected to do instead of doing something that I really really want to do. And I've met people that seem to have lost the ability to enjoy anything. I was that person and I never want to be that person again. It's death while still being able to breathe.

Don't grow up. It's a trap. It's a costume. It's an act. Protect the right to be silly in the grocery store on a Tuesday afternoon. Wear socks with bears on them. Watch cartoons. Perfect your nose spoon game. Play outside till dark. Sleep in and do laundry later. Take a mental health day and call it a mental health day. Be irresponsible once. Or twice! Set a precedent of taking care of yourself, in whatever way is necessary, instead of glamorizing "busy" and "working hard." Have a real day of nothing and don't feel bad at all. Brag to your friends about how much fun it was to do nothing, or everything! instead of complaining about how busy you are and that you have no time. That's your choice, you know. I work hard everyday, but I'm working on my spirit and my health before anything else in this world. And so far, it's been the best few years of my life.

The Life Audit

After weeks of trying to figure out why I've been quite emotional without blaming it all on my 30 year old wild hormone party, I have come to the conclusion that I am restless. I am attempting to allow myself to feel this way, however uncomfortable it makes me feel, cautious to offer a remedy that doesn't fit. I look for jobs and don't apply because I know they aren't right. I spend time with new people and (try to) focus on silence and listening because I'm not really sure if I want to invest. I focus on enjoying where I'm living, running outside as much as I can, trying not to say "no" to new opportunities to explore, trying to stay in the moment when the faith is tested. I try to rely heavily on hope and past lessons that have always shown us that everything always works out. Everything is going to be okay, always. Really.

Lindsay, the only non-family member who has known me for 20+ years, said something to me years ago, how much of my unsettledness stems from "not being easily amused." I am so that person. Being on autopilot ruins me. I don't want friends, I want family. I don't want a mindless book, I want something that makes my brain hurt, stretch, grow. I don't want a "job," I want something that makes me feel excited to plug into on Mondays. Man, I want to like Mondays. I've gone from being an avid anti-Monday drone to being pretty neutral about Mondays. But it would be great to like them.

My anxiety has come back in a different, stranger form. It used to be a large group of strangers that would set me off. Now, it seems to be a smaller group of acquaintances. I saw my acupuncturist about it and she mentioned that maybe I'm creating more room in my consciousness and maybe I'm an empath that needs to guard her energy. I tend to love big and deeply and maybe I need to reel that in. I always know. Sometimes I ignore. Now is not the time to tell your gut to shut up.

In writing to my friend Brandon about how things are going, I warned him that my week recap was going to be depressing, but it was pretty eye opening.

"I feel like the world is spinning by and I'm stuck in concrete watching."

I'm feeling super disconnected lately, my own creation. Alone. Old. Stuck. Weird. All of the feelings. Anxious. Insomniac. Eternally bored.

Running has taken the edge off, but yesterday, I felt particularly unplugged from being a human. I was waking up super early to get to running in the afternoon with sun. Not really eating enough. Not hydrating enough. Being an emotional monster. So I decided to do this life audit that I've been wanting to do since Moon Highway posted it on their Twitter.

How and Why To Do a Life Audit

It starts out fairly simple: write down 100 wishes. Sounds easy, but I stalled at 30 and let the rest kind of trickle in. Reading further, I was encouraged to really dream "big," crazy big dreams from my childhood. I was shocked with how hard that was. Why wasn't I allowing myself "big" wishes? When did I shut that part off and why? (Tune in next time for "Why I Quit Adulting.")

My life audit pointed out how I spend my time, what I want to do with my time and where my priorities lie. My three biggest areas of wishes were in spiritual work, education and creativity, meaning my priorities are working on myself spiritually, learning a ton of new things and harnessing my creative power. It was slightly interesting to see how my priorities have shifted: three years ago I was really concerned about my relationship with Paul, my career and my connection to others. Although these are all on the list, they pale in comparison to the former areas, which showed me that at the heart of things, it's not my job or my connections that need an intervention right now. 

Another great exercise was writing down who you spend your time with and who you want to spend more time with. I prioritized and planned more texting/phone calls/letter writing to a lot of great people that are unfortunately far away now. I used to write a lot of letters, held my same editing criteria to each word and it was a wonderful writing exercise. Multi tasking.

I also sorted out my wishes by three areas: what I can do today, what wishes are aspirations (go to the Germany/France border) and what things require a few steps of planning or preparation. This was incredible as I saw a lot of the fulfillment of certain wishes can start immediately. They don't require planning, just a bit of mindfulness. It's easy to get stuck in "waiting for the day" and I used to think that I was waiting for the universe to hand me the next thing. Maybe that's not my patience lesson. Maybe it's being patience while also being in a really good space, working on my shit. 

It's really easy to blame your unhappiness on things that are out of your control. It's kind of like you're blaming the weather because you can't do anything about it. It's an external factor and it's not your fault. 

But sometimes when you dig deeper, you realize it totally is your fault. You are "driving" this crazy train and a lot of things are in your control. This life audit showed me that my unsettledness isn't because I don't like my job or that I miss my friends (I do miss my friends) or that I need to figure out how to stick to a budget. What I'm searching for is internal understanding and acceptance. I long to understand myself, why I'm so empathetic, why I love so deeply, how to harness that, how to universally accept that, how to love that, what to say yes to, what to say no to, where to invest my precious free time, and what kind of activities and people are going to help me understand and unpack all of these things. It feels like there's a ton of garbage in the way of getting to the next step, and there IS, but it's not because I have the wrong job or I'm in the wrong place with the wrong people. Feeling like I want to "run away," feeling disconnected, feeling manic, anxious, depressed and completely ungrounded, is just a manifestation of being uncomfortable with this emotional digging. It's a lot of hard work. You want to deflect it and name it as something you can't control because it's hard. You have to face yourself and figure out why you're making yourself miserable: why you're so addicted to feeling that way and how to change it. It's scary and hard and so worth it.

In the meantime, and in an effort to start the process of reclaiming my happiness, I'm committing to giving up most of my TV "couch" time that I spend idly staring and spend more time writing, reading, getting outside, listening to music with Paul and creating, whether that be crocheting or playing the piano again or baking treats for my family.  That doesn't mean I'm giving up the couch, just what I'm doing when I'm sitting there. Mama earned that lounge.

It almost feels like we are both on the verge of something. However, the "verge" may not be something that "happens." I'm starting to believe that it's something we discover within ourselves.

And I may just feel unsettled until I get the hang of this. Maybe I need to move into "unsettledness" and make feeling unsettled my home and see where that takes me. 

Think like a mountain.

“Too much safety seems to yield only danger in the long run.”

— Aldo Leopold "Think Like a Mountain"

If you asked me two years ago if I wanted to try skiing I would've laughed and said, "Nah, that's not for me." Growing up, the perception was that skiing was for rich people. It was an exclusive club I was never invited to. Tahoe changed that. It's a powerful thing to feel like you belong on a mountain in the middle of winter. It's spiritual. It's quiet. It does whatever it wants and you get to participate. You fly. You laugh because you are having the most fun of your life. You fall and get scared. You get back up because fear is no longer something that motivates you to quit. It's a welcomed part of your life that doesn't hold you back from doing anything and everything you've ever wanted to do. And the incredible part is that when you are open to letting skiing seep into your psyche, everything you learn on the mountain directly applies to to rest of your whole life. 

When my boss gave me a Wednesday to work from home, my heart said go skiing. Paul had snowboarded on his Tuesday off and came home with a giant grin on his face. No crowds  on weekdays. Just me and the mountains.

But all the excuses I use to keep myself inside my comfort zone popped up.

Eh I should sleep in.
What if I get injured?
Isn't skiing by yourself boring?

It took everything I had to tell that dumb idiot inside my head to shut up. I anticipated more excuses in the morning, like you don't feel like loading up your Jeep! It's too early! It's cold! So I loaded my Jeep the night before. One step ahead of my dumb idiot brain.  

I wasn't even convinced that I was going to go until I was physically in the Northstar parking lot. With no one on the runs, I started my meditation out loud.
I am a mountain. Turn. I am solid. Turn.
I couldn't believe it was just me, the run and the trees. I started saying it louder and looked around cautiously. No one. Louder. Then it turned into a song. By my second run I was laughing and singing at the top of my lungs like a certified lunatic and surprisingly didn't stop when people showed up. There was an ownership to that mountain that I felt deeply. I belonged there. And I went faster than I had ever skied ever. 

Something in my head kept telling me, "Slow down! You're goin' too fast!" But then I realized that I'd been going slow my whole life, afraid to do anything without a calculated assessment. But when you ski, you realize the value of being 100% in the moment. Your plan is to make tons of snap decisions on how you're going to get to the bottom without hitting anything. You're looking down at the next hundred feet of snow and you're letting your senses guide you. You don't have a map or a five year plan; you have what's in front of you and nothing else. And it was then that I learned the value of fast. Sometimes I need fast, someday through trees, maybe even off mountains. I need to dance with fear. 

Skiing has taught me how to live. Nothing has ever helped me become fearless in so many areas. Starting a brand new career at 30. Negotiating a flexible schedule at work. Training for a half marathon when running hasn't been a part of my life in three or so years. Daring to quit planning out the rest of my life, refusing to miss the one in front of me for the sake of security. 

My spirit, my being tells me to embrace this wild unpredictable life. My brain filled with years of learning how to be sensible and safe tells me to keep my feet on the ground and my eyes on the next five years. And I'm still learning how to follow my heart and teach my brain, "Tro-Kay, man: everything is going to be okay." 

You don't move to the mountains to start your life; you move here to live it. The kid in me is no longer buried in stress and obligation: she is front and center prioritizing belly laughs and an outrageous amount of fun. And the grown up in me gets younger everyday. 

Awkward with a Coffee Cup

My grandfather and I had an excellent tradition of "The Christmas Outfit." We'd go shopping for a whole day to find an outfit, head to toe, hat to shoes, and then open it on Christmas. It was an amazing tradition and every time I shop, I miss him the most. He was an artist, painting was his medium, and had such an eye for the color and shape of things. He always had me looking like a style icon, at least one outfit-worth.

When my mom passed away and I was faced with the prospect of junior prom, my grandfather took it upon himself to help me find "the dress." I was visiting him in Florida and we took to the mall first. We went into a super fancy store where you come out and stand on this podium to look at yourself in seven differently-angled mirrors. The saleslady "ooh-ed" and "ahh-ed" at me standing on this box while I tried to soak in the princess moment in this $400 dress. I felt like a giant cupcake and got real hungry. Knowing my face, my grandfather took me to a less fancy place, a consignment shop, where I found the most perfect vintage dress and matching diamond earrings. I loved things with "souls," things that felt like they had their own memories or reminded me of my own. I was also slightly obsessed with old movies and desperately wanted to look like Audrey Hepburn. (I also really loved Margot Tenenbaum, so trying to mesh the two was often times tragic.)

Prom selfie

Being 30 has brought its challenges. The acne, hot flashes and the constantly nagging notion of "Wait, shouldn't I have health insurance?" don't ever go away. I'm also constantly trying to figure out how to dress myself.

I got real excited last winter when I found a sweater in a thrift shop that had real gnarly silver spikes on the shoulders.

Before I had a chance to wear it to work, an eighth grader showed up with the same one. It was a Forever 21 brand sweater, which when you really think about it, being "Forever 21" sounds like a prison sentence. A very close second to "Starbucks for Life."

Conversely, I feel like I need a real good 401K to shop at Banana Republic. And now that I'm no longer in need of "business casual" as I am on track to work from home full time and live in flannel/beanie world, am I now free to wear my donut pajamas to work? With how much I talk about cartoons, that feels like I'm growing "down."

Pinterest helps not. "Women's Fashion" has a lot of outfits with cut off heads. How am I supposed to know if my head matches that outfit if I can't see theirs? Also, my body doesn't make sense for a lot of these. I'm fairly certain that dress would make me look like the leg lamp from The Christmas Story.

Also bags? I haven't carried a "bag" in two years.

And don't these women deserve heads? #yesallwomen

So what combination of words do I search to see people that look like me? Invisible Fashion for Sarah? 

I have yet to wear top or bottom out in public. But someday...

So then I embrace the West Coast mentality that you can do whatever you want and be whoever you want to be! I went to Junky's Clothing Exchange, a popular Burning Man outlet, and let myself live.   

I also became a human trophy figurine.  

I don't really know what's appropriate anymore. I kind of feel like an awkward teenager that doesn't know where she fits in.

I visit home in less than two weeks. Small town mountain life to midwest suburb/city life where I will inevitably see everyone I went to high school with at the mall. This shocks me brain. I feel like packing for Christmas Break means trying to figure out who I'm supposed to be in the "city" so I don't have to deal with the stares, the "what are you wearing?" raised eyebrows that make me want to hide behind a very large object (note: there aren't a lot of boulders in Ohio/Michigan). 

Most days I look like this.

And after years of agonizing over outfits, highlighting the contours of my face, buying three different curling irons and the right kind of hair gel, I came out to this small town where none of that matters and let it all run out. And sometimes I feel like I've "let myself go" into this messy mountain woman that only cuts her hair once a year, that runs out of foundation and doesn't buy more, and the only time that makes me feel bad is when I'm back in the city where people spend lots of time and money on everything I've let go. And I ask myself this question: is this growing up? Accepting a paintless face, grownup zits and all, and embracing the tomboy you've always been before you let the world change you? 

Do not get me wrong. I love to play dress up. And I believe everyone should feel free enough to do whatever they want. But doing what I want in daily life involves a ponytail, jeans and a tshirt. Paul loves that Sarah the most. And so do I. (Oatmeal likes me with sweaters so he can try to chew on the sleeves. Weirdo.)

I think selfies are a way of testing out your face before you show it to the world. I get it. Face dress rehearsal. And I'm real bad at it. 

So here is some advice that I don't know how to take. 

• Live your life, whatever it looks like.
• Be brave enough to be drastically different than everyone around you.
• A coffee cup is a much more practical accessory than a bag you can't take on a hike.
• You're only as weird as you let others make you.
• Go ahead and mix those metals, girl. Silver AND gold. Embrace the duality.

P.S. These are my new style icons. Antlers and flower crowns. WHAT ELSE DO YOU NEED TO KNOW?

My Uncle Brad

“I guessed that only at the last possible minute did the soul in a determined fashion flee the dying flesh. Who could blame it for its reluctance? We loved our lives more than we ever knew, and at the end felt the bounty of them, as one would say in church, felt even the richness of their missed opportunities, or just understood that they were more than we had realized during the living of them and a lot to give up.”

— lorrie moore

Uncle Brad always seemed to like Christmas. When I was 8, and the only niece/granddaughter for another year, Uncle Brad got me a super cool vinyl suitcase with a matching vinyl umbrella. Both were white with embellished neon pink and turquoise lines, in line with early 90s fashion. When I went off to college at Eastern Michigan, he bought me my first college sweatshirt and a calling card so I could call my long distance boyfriend. The next year, he bought me a string of Christmas lights that were lit-up cows with Santa hats. I hung them proudly in the kitchen of my college sophomore year duplex. They paired well with the Bruce Springsteen chore chart and giant Bob Dylan head poster.

When I was home to visit at the tail end of October this year, Uncle Brad asked for the Anderson's bag to be brought down from his room. He unearthed a set of tractor Christmas lights he had been saving for 20 years, in the same bag he bought them.

"Those were like the cows you bought me," I said. He didn't remember. He smiled broadly looking at the box. We didn't talk about time. It didn't matter what day it was. He wanted to hang them up for people to see them. So did I. After four days of puzzles, leftover lunches and the beautiful leaf-littered farm, Uncle Brad hugged me weakly before I caught my plane back and thanked me for flying across the country to see him, even if it was just for 4 days. 

He passed away 7 days later and I catch myself forgetting that it happened, then accepting it happened, and feel everything all over again.

My dad gave me the news that they gave my Uncle Brad "one month" on October 2nd. I cried so hard I couldn't breathe. I drove my Jeep through the mountains haphazardly and pulled into the beach parking lot to cry until I felt people staring.

There are many people that deal with death gracefully. They understand our mortality in a matter-of-fact way and I'm sure they all grieve, but an edge seems to be missing from their view. I've never been able to grasp this, let alone practice it. I am reduced to a depressed, hollow shell of a person for weeks, desperate for something to be funny again, but always going back to the fact that I will never see this person again. The finality shakes me until I eventually wedge things in between the sadness. It fades, but it never disappears.

When my Uncle Brad died, I told myself that I had a lot of time to prepare. I told myself that it wasn't a shock, that I did my best to see him before he transitioned, that it was okay that I couldn't go to the funeral. But me as a whole felt like I had failed. I felt selfish that I had chosen to live 2,000 miles away, especially when my whole family assembled after the funeral to light his fireworks and drink his homemade wine. They sent him off in such a beautiful way. That was closure, Ronau style. But what was I supposed to do?

The first news with ticking time attached is always the hardest. Crying always feels like it has no bottom until you become aware of your surroundings and that someone may be feeling uncomfortable. But you never feel like you're done, like the sadness of this person being pulled away from you in this strange doctor-given time frame ever leaves. It just hangs there, in the door frame, in the last holiday photo, in the tractor Christmas lights he wanted so badly to hang in October, and it never leaves. 

Maybe I don't want it to leave. I'd rather be sad than forget. And all of these people that have left, that still stir the hollow crying, the deep sadness that never goes away, I'll take it to remember we had you for a while. How incredibly lucky are we?

Last week, my acupuncturist led me through a powerful Tibetan trauma practice that helped me reach the closure that I sought. It's called Phowa (pronounced po-wa) and it helped me transition through the grief and the guilt of being far away from my family at this time. If you're dealing with grief, even years later, consider reading through this practice. It's an amazing way to process the transition of death.

Read about Phowa here.

The Beech Keepers

I get it LeBron. I totally get it.   

I watched the new Nike commercial today about LeBron's return to Cleveland. If you don't get teary, you don't have a pulse. 

I just spent four days back home. On the second day, as my dad drove us home at dusk after a long day at the farm, I was floored at how beautiful that side of the country was. Had I always known that or was this literally a different place than where I grew up?

"About a week ago was my favorite time of year," he said.

"Harvest?"

"Yeah. When the combines come out. Growin' up, it meant a lot of things. Getting paid was a big one."

He looked like he should be driving an old beat up pickup truck instead of a Prius. We had a full day of puzzles and attempting to find small objects in giant outbuildings. I should've worn less fashionable, more practical boots. I was an amateur. Was the girl that caught frogs with her brother still in there somewhere? I didn't know, but did wish I had some old beat up work boots and that my flannel wasn't from The Gap.

68 acres of radishes, my dad and a barn

There had been many out of town visitors recently, but I had come the farthest, by plane.  I helped grandma wrap up the sleeping bags and climbed up the narrow staircase to put them in the upstairs closet. I couldn't help but think about the generations before me who had climbed these stairs. At least three. The upstairs hallway, much like the parlor walls, was lined with bookshelves, stuffed to the brim with books. It was and always has been the best way to decorate a wall. I wondered if my grandma had read them all.

Sitting in the dining room at the helm of the first puzzle of my visit, I noticed the most interesting similarities between my grandmother and I. She does the crossword in the paper with her coffee every morning. She hated chickens (they're condescending). Her book collection is staggering. And our seriousness with puzzles had no limit. It was the best time to do puzzles when everything around us proved extremely hard. It made me feel a sense of understanding that I hadn't felt before.

The farm had always been my sanctuary from the city growing up. It's where I learned how to swim, how to truly get lost in the woods, how to win at sword fighting with corn stalks, how to find the best raspberry on the bush, how to dig for worms and wrangle a blue gill off the hook. Nowhere, besides Tahoe, had ever given me such peace. And ever since I can remember, the farm has always been my favorite place on earth. 

Paying my respects to the vegetables that I was about to consume

Had this place changed or had I changed?  Without attaching how "uncool" northwest Ohio seems to be, a lack of culture and an understanding of people who choose to only eat fish, I felt the need to stay. I wanted to help my family through this difficult stuff that made us all stare at our boots and throw ourselves into puzzles when there wasn't anything to say.  I wanted to stick my toe in the soil and be planted there. And that feeling hasn't changed on my return to the mountains.

Someday, I want to come back to my favorite place on this planet, another place that reduces me to my 12 year old self, my best self. Someday soon. Because if LeBron can take his talents back to Ohio, maybe I can, too.

The Last Tater Tot and E"turtle" Love

I got married in a tiny winding staircase in the first apartment Paul and I shared. We were navigating a flower patterned love seat up the labyrinth with careful precision of lowering a corner, raising the middle, much to the chagrin of the audience of pale peach painted wood paneling. A game of centimeters, we miscalculated and took to unscrewing the cheap plastic feet of the love seat while balancing the entire thing on the ancient railing and one of our knees, both hanging on by moments. Once feetless, it seemed to float up by itself, finally resting in our equally tiny attic apartment. Exhausted and eventually distracted, it lay feetless for a while like a helpless baby bird, in a nest of the ugliest 1970s carpet in the tristate area, complete with the iconic swirl of shitbrown, eggshell white, and peppered with black specks. The whole of it was matted down, perhaps after years of angry pacing. And it was the seventh address I'd had in four years. 

We stayed in that tiny place with a bed sheet for a bedroom door for two blissful years, where we navigated domestic chores: who makes dinner, who does the dishes, who sweeps the carpet to make it look exactly like it looked before. The house was built in the early 1900s and age settled into every crack, so much that when one cleaned, it never looked any different. But we adored the built-in bookshelves that hugged the living room windows and showed off the square window that led out to a tiny shelf at the very top point of the front of the house. Paul would feed the squirrels with discount mixed nuts we purchased with our pennies at Big Lots and he would smile when they came down from their tree houses to snack. A sweat lodge in the summer, it ushered us outside to enjoy the outskirts of the Old West End, a historic neighborhood just outside downtown Toledo, oscillating between startling poverty and gorgeous architecture.

We moved out of what was eventually called the Mustard Jar, a comment on its musty yellow exterior walls and its enormity of three floors and a basement, four months before Paul proposed by way of my Easter basket. He slipped my mother's ring on the wing of a tiny owl that made a magic wand sound when you pressed its tummy. As a new Beyonce (what I called fiancé, because I'm funny), I was met with a host of crabby women in teacher's lounges, event planning meetings, grocery story lines, that would always caution my excitement with "Wait 'til you're married."

But ever since the flowered love seat, the built-in bookshelves, the sheet for a door, I had already been. Which led me to vehemently deny that I wanted marriage, because the fact that Paul and I made a home, the first address that felt like home in four years, that was all I needed. Why wait for a man in a suit to give me a new name in a church on a Saturday afternoon when I already said "I do" to the audience of friendly squirrels, pale peach wood paneling, who witnessed the first fight over dishes, the creation of mashed potato pizza, the stress of making rent, having gas money, food in the fridge, on a college kid job and a long commute to not much better?

I'm not sure what those old ladies were referring to when they told me to "Wait 'til you're married." Instead of getting excited and offended, maybe their stank faces and eye rolls were cleverly hiding the fact that I should wait for it to, every year, improve exponentially. Wait until he loves you enough to give you the last tater tot! Wait until he haphazardly agrees to be a "turtle in love" for Halloween, with shells that spell "E-Turtle Love." Wait until he looks at you on a Sunday night while you binge watch "Gilmore Girls" in your sweats and crazy bun hair and you will swear that he is falling in love with you all over again. Wait until you celebrate 8+ years of marriage and the memories between you will fill the room with stories of that Volvo you named Murphy with the crank moon roof and no heat, the bats that took over and ran you both into the iconic windy stairway, the squirrels that got too familiar and took to breaking in to find their cashews and peanuts, the dishwasher that solved 89% of your arguments. 

So many things have happened in four years that it's hard to keep track. And if you throw in the four years before, these eight years have felt like a life time, and easily the best eight+ years of my life. Paul makes me better, separately and together, and I practice gratitude everyday because of him. And if these eight years are any indication of what's next, those ladies were so right. Wait until you're married for years to Paul Young: it will make your smile so much wider than when you only wore one ring on your ring finger in your six month engagement.

Married for four years, together for eight, making you all nauseated with all this love.

And now your annual viewing of the Jubilee video.

Thirty years and 3.5 months old. Real old.

There was a time this past month that I was certain I was with child. Eventually a test proved me wrong but I couldn't make sense of this weeping. All. The. Time.
Not just when it's appropriate, like seeing a tiny baby wearing a baseball hat. Like always. Colbie Callait songs (Why do I try so hard?!).
Crying about crying to Colbie Callait songs.
Firefighters saving pet hamsters.
Tiny chipmunks racing across the street.
And then there were hot flashes. I tried to figure out if I was with child or just making really poor wardrobe choices (like how do you really know it's sweater weather? You roll the dice and wear a sweater!).

I consulted Siri (really helpful!) and my cousin who happens to be 11 days younger than me with two kids.

It's not time to have kids especially since I don't have health insurance and live in a tiny apartment. But half of me wanted to be so these symptoms could be explained. How do you go from being semi-normal to being Rita Wilson from "Sleepless in Seattle?"

Well, I guess the final explanation is that I'm thirty. And no one told me that this is just what happens. 

1. Feelings. All of them. Sometimes at the same time. All tiny things including tiny forks make you a little insane. You are always seconds away from being a weepy mess.
    
2. It's time to have kids and it's time to have 17 of them. For a person who always constantly needs a plan, that has been overridden. If I was pregnant today, I would be terrified and incredibly excited. And that never ever existed before. This epiphany will hit you when you're minding your own business in the shoe aisle at Target and your eye will catch something tiny. Then, cue #1.
    
3. Staying in pajamas and organizing the closet has never felt so good. Natural high. And it has officially replaced capturing that real good hair and makeup by taking a real good photo on a Saturday night.
    
4. Indigestion. Without warning. For no reason. "Avoid spicy foods and laying down after a meal." Doesn't apply. Plain oatmeal for breakfast gives me heartburn. So does oxygen.
    
5. I actually refer back to Pinterest and make things, like dinner and scarves and my own shampoo. 
    
6. Skinny jeans make my knees ache. And I don't want to talk about it.
    
7. One day you'll be sitting on the couch and your partner will tenderly reach out to brush a hair off your cheek and realize it's connected to skin and you will want to die. And your partner will be genuinely intrigued by this tree branch growing out of your face and you will run to the bathroom and Rita Wilson all over the sink.

With a body that is constantly changing into a new one, and feeling like there are too many similarities with that radioactive ooze creating the Ninja Turtles, there are perks. I have less of a tendency to put up with nonsense, in the fact that alone time has become incredibly important and more important than collecting a pile of friends eager to fill up their social calendar. I don't need anyone's permission to make choices, mistakes, big life decisions, when I thought I absolutely did before. My body maybe turning into a cartoon mutant turtle, but I've never felt so alive, in tune to what I want and need, and aware of who and what is good for me and who and what the universe put in my path to teach me a lesson on patience and love. And sometimes Paul is so scared of my crying spells that he buys me sushi and wine and gives me "hormone balancing advice" from Dr. Oz.

This life is a wild ride, friends. What do you guys got goin on in the 30+ department?