Pretty Good Year
July 31st, 2006
I realized on Friday that it’s been exactly one year since we closed on this house. Exactly one year since we made the irrevocable decision to leave our home and move to this odd little state, and honestly? It’s fucking weird. There are moments where it feels like it hasn’t been but five minutes that we’ve lived here, and there are days – days like this weekend, mostly – that I think that I’ve been here an eternity, and I’m not sure I can take another moment of it.
And so, to deflect any agony I feel at being the girl with giant glasses who wasn’t invited to prom while you all Blog your Blog Her-ing and I sit here, meeting no one except for the lady at the grocery store, I will calmly, and not-at-all-tearfully note: what a year it’s been. We’ve danced with Southerners and played bingo with the elderly and talked about shooting squirrels and met Janet Reno and Michael Shiavo and learned how to kayak and got a dog and thought about having babies and learned how to tile the floor and got a new job and ate at new restaraunts and went to the beach and watched the sunset. And we’ve learned a lot.
I’ve re-learned that I am married to the right person. You can’t live in complete isolation with a mistake. Add a pile of outside stressors, like loneliness, depression, career crises, isolation and a raging anxiety disorder and it’s a miracle we haven’t killed each other. But we haven’t! And in fact, we’ve gotten better! Yes, better! I hate to go all sappy on you and all, but I really do love my husband, and God, I’m so freaking lucky. It’s been the two of us against the rest of this odd little world for a year. No friends. No family. And we’ve done pretty well, I think. And yet, I laugh every day because of him. Because of him, I’m on a different path in life – he made me quit my horrendous job and get a new one that I loved – even though it meant a pay cut of astronomical proportions – just so that I would be happy. I married someone who would never want anything for me other than what made me happy, and I didn’t realize how huge that was until I was completely alone with him. And that’s pretty fucking cool.
I got a new job. A job that pays me less, less, less and did I mention LESS? than half or even, um, one third, of what I made before, and a job that most college students could probably handle. But dude, I write – WRITE! – for a living now (along with various and sundry other administrative tasks, which I also love), and I love it, and the salary really doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. I can freelance anywhere now, and I didn’t have that before. And the golden handcuffs of a gloriously inflated corporate salary? Gone. I can subsist on mere pennies now, thank you, and I will.
But God, it’s so hard sometimes. The amount of money we spend on travel just for baseline activities like weddings and family gatherings, etc. that we used to just DRIVE to, would make your head spin. The fact that we have no one to watch our dog when we go away or anyone even to pick up our paper and get the mail is pretty awful. It’s been a year, and we still don’t have any friends, which makes me feel so…God, it makes me feel a lot of things. It would be one thing if I was meeting all of these people I liked and wanted to be friends with and they just didn’t like me. I could control it, whatever “it” was. But I’ve met exactly no one, which feels like staring out into the barren wasteland of the cold west watching the tumbleweeds fly by like giant rolls of hay.
There are long, hard stretches of days where I don’t talk to anyone but Adam and my colleagues, that make me want to put my head in my hands and just sob until I can’t breathe, and sometimes that’s exactly what I do. Sometimes it feels like life is just driving by in a glass bus. I can see in – can see the people inside talking to each other, laughing and interacting and functioning in a world that doesn’t revolve around the VFW’s activities calendar – but I can’t be a part of it. I can’t play.
It’s been an odd year. A year of working, playing, relaxing on the beach. A year without family, friends or any outside contact. But it’s been a good year – a year of odd little unexpected gifts and joy and happy days with my husband and dog beach and kayaking and all the beautiful things that we love. And when it is over, I think in an odd little way, if we ever leave here, we will miss it.
P.S. I think if I’d realized our lovely Sarcomical was going to alight me with such kind words, I might have written a less maudlin post that doesn’t make people want to stab me with white-hot knives of asympathetic frustration.
P.P.S. BlogHer 07 in Chicago? That’s not east. That’s midwest. THAT IS NOT EAST. Don’t lie to us and say you’re “bringing it east” when that IS NOT EAST. “Business” conference in New York my ass. Splitting them was not a wise move, if you ask me. But no one did.
**Tori Amos
Entry Filed under: Nuttin'
22 Comments Add your own
1. Yez | July 31st, 2006 at 7:21 pm
Chicago is most certainly midwest. Reminds me of the teen girl I met in Seattle who’d only been as far east as Idaho :> Not that there was any reason she should’ve traveled further, but it just seemed so silly for “Idaho” and “east” to be in the same sentence.
So you’re saying I have a guaranteed 1.75-year minimum procrastination time for knitting baby prezzies? (Let the doodling begin.)
2. -R- | July 31st, 2006 at 9:18 pm
I have lived in Minnesota for two years. The people here are not crazies or rednecks (for the most part), but it is still an adjustment. I was MISERABLE for the first three months because I knew no one but H and talked to no one all day while studying for the bar exam.
It is still hard sometimes, but it is getting easier all the time now. And it has made me realize that H is definitely the right husband for me
3. Lawyerish | August 1st, 2006 at 6:20 am
It’s so hard to get things exactly right, isn’t it? Like you make a big change and you get to do this job you love but then there’s the other not-so-good stuff like not having friends close by. But if you had stayed up North, you wouldn’t get to write and relax and you’d be tearing your hair out as a corporate drone. I’ve tried it both ways, too (although when I took a leave from work, we stayed in NY), and I don’t know which I prefer. What I’d like is for the Money Fairy to alight on us so we can just do whatever we want wherever we want. Is that too much to ask?? Is it??
I am totally envious of your job and your proximity to sunsets. And who knows – in the next year, you could find a bunch of friends you absolutely adore and things could fall into place and you won’t want to leave, or at least the leaving will be a little more poignant. It’s possible. But it’s also fabulous that you have such a great husband and that the two of you can carve out a spot of happiness even in a place you don’t love. So in that, you’re absolutely blessed.
(Also, need I point out that you have all these friends out here in the Internets who love you?)
4. Jamie | August 1st, 2006 at 6:37 am
Blogher 07 is in Chicago? WHAT?!
The mountain comes to Mohammed! Phenomenal!
5. Christine | August 1st, 2006 at 6:38 am
The 8 months I stayed in Florida between college and law school was just miserable. I made a couple of friends, but no one so incredibly life altering, in fact I’ve lost touch now three years later with the final two…
I think Florida feels like an eternity and then at the same time, like no time at all, because the lack of seasons. You turn around in April and ask where the hell did Fall and Winter go? But at the same time everyone and everything moves. so. slowly…
You’ll figure it out in time. Maybe with more friends and less tears in the next year. And if you’re down there in/around Christmas, I fully intend to stalk you. Or drive at least half way to Naples, because I’m too lazy to actually stalk.
6. Heather B. | August 1st, 2006 at 6:40 am
I’ve been living here for 5 years and it still feels new to me and yet other days I’m ready to get the hell out and try somewhere else. Somewhere on the other side of the country perhaps. Who knows.
The good thing about a year is that even if you don’t plan on it, a lot can still change.
As for Chicago…well it’s considerably closer than San Jose was and getting back East from that place took 9 hours between 4 cities. Therefore Chicago makes me happy. Chicago won’t force me to cry due to exhaustion in Nashville. Chicago is good.
7. Lianne | August 1st, 2006 at 8:59 am
I think the whole “is this home” thing hit me the hardest when my mom died and my childhood/adult home was demolished. I had dreams for months that I was homeless.
I have moved to three different homes in the same town in the last three years. I still don’t feel like I’m home, but I do have a support system of friends and loved ones, albeit they are not family.
I am grateful to Sarcomical for introducing me to you. I’ll be back.
8. Jen W. | August 1st, 2006 at 9:31 am
Am I the only one who seems to like living in Florida? I guess so…maybe it’s the area I live in, or the fact that I’m in a job I love and with my boyfriend. Hmm…There are certainly things I hate about it too, but don’t you get that everywhere?
I’m glad that you seem to be happy with your decision, and that you don’t seem too depressed that you have to stay here for another year. I think it’s awesome and incredible that you and Adam are happy and comfortable, despite being so far away from home.
On a completely different note, how hilarious is it that Jamie referred to herself as Mohammed?
9. jes | August 1st, 2006 at 9:34 am
I loved your rawness in this entry. And I’m still jealous of your job.
10. jonniker | August 1st, 2006 at 9:45 am
Yez: At least.
R: It’s gotten so much easier, honestly. And how nice to realize you’re married to the right person, yes?
Ish: Bring on the money fairy. Bring her ON! And I love the Internets, too. I do! It helps.
Jamie: I know! I know! So you’ll definitely be there, which is awesome.
Christine: Christmas! We’re here for some, in Boston for some. Can’t wait to see when/if we overlap.
Heather B.: Oh god, I agree. San Jose was not a good choice, and Chicago is *definitely* better. But to say ‘east’ and then say ‘Chicago’ is hilarious. They’ve now ensured that *both* coasts have to travel, which is also hilarious.
Lianne: So, my coworker’s name is the same as yours and for ONE SPLIT second, when I read your name, I calmly died. But I’m so happy to see you here and see that you are not her! Thank you.
Jen: I truthfully think it’s the east coast vs. west coast of Florida thing. I really do. The west coast is a *different world* than the other side. Also, even though we bought low, the cost of housing has skyrocketed to such a terrifying degree, that all of the young families/people stopped moving here a year ago, so the demographics have shifted considerably. It’s still (I do not kid) 70% over-55. I truly think that’s a large chunk of it. And remember: the other commenters are from Orlando, which is scary for far different reasons (tourism! Gaack!)
Jes: Oh man. Thanks. And yeah, my job is *awesome* and might easily keep me here another two years.
11. Claire | August 1st, 2006 at 9:57 am
i have to go back thru your archives and see WHY you went down there in the first place… i must be missing something. was this move voluntary?
it is scary to uproot your whole life and plop down somewhere across the country. I’ve dreamed of doing it for years, but when it comes down to it i don’t think i could do it.
12. Jamie | August 1st, 2006 at 11:22 am
You mean, I’m not the chosen one – the son of the omnipotent Allah?
What?
13. jonniker | August 1st, 2006 at 11:31 am
Claire: It was voluntary, and it was no good reason, other than we were fed up with the cost of living in Boston (which was HIGH then) and my in-laws live here, and we thought, hell, we’d try something new. And we did! And lo, it has been good and hard and weird and everything.
Jamie: Mohammed! I seriously did laugh at that. I mean, um, no son of Allah for you.
14. Stinkypaw | August 1st, 2006 at 1:31 pm
Despite your loneliness and being surrounded by old people and rednecks, you re-discovered that you love and have a great husband, that is so cool! So many people don’t ever realised that they have it good with their spouse, because they only focus on their surroundings, and that is sad. Glad to read that that aspect of your life is working out for you!
Not many partners would tell you to quit your job for something less… That’s a good man! A friend told me (when I became self-employed) “Do what you love and the money will come” – I trust it’s true. If not money, man! do I feel better about my job and myself! And that IS priceless!
Time flies even when you’re not having fun!
15. urban chick | August 1st, 2006 at 1:51 pm
big time sympathy, J
i’ve just moved back to my hometown after an 18 year absence and it’s a whole different ballgame…i left as a single, childless , carefree student and returned as a full-time SAHM to two kids
NOT THE SAME
not the same AT ALL
i don’t know anyone up here any more – not really (unless you count my old schoolmate who is now MY FAMILY DOCTOR) – thankfully my parents are close by (big big plus on the babysitting front) and thankfully it turns out that – 14 years down the line (gulp) – mr chick and i DO still enjoy each other’s company
very fortunate, as we are spending A LOT of time together alone
i miss my (meatspace) friends – as others have said: thank god for the internet!
UC
16. Leah | August 1st, 2006 at 2:07 pm
You, me, BlogHer07. We will gossip mercilessly.
17. Jen | August 1st, 2006 at 3:16 pm
First: Sarcomical recommended me to you yesterday as we IM’d about BlogHer, and how we wanted to go next year and how cool it would be if it were in NY. Chicago? Eh.
Second: My husband and I just reached our one-year mark of living in a completely new city as well. However, we are living in a city we only used to dream about, so in a way, I feel I am in an opposite situation than you in that I couldn’t be happier. And yet, I can sympathize with the lack of friends part, as it took six or more months for us to really hit our stride and start making some.
I guess I just wanted to say hang in there. I’ve only just started reading your blog, but so far, I really enjoy what you have to say. Your words are very mellifluent, if that makes sense.
18. Bethany Coffey | August 1st, 2006 at 4:33 pm
Hey lady. You are funny!! I like how you write and relate immensly to what you write about. I too am in a place I do NOT consider home with noone to “hang” with but my hubby and our cat, yet long for a bay but WONT DO IT HERE!!! I’m soooo linking you like five minutes ago!
19. jonniker | August 1st, 2006 at 6:00 pm
Stinkypaw: You said it so beautifully. My husband is nothing short of perfect, honestly. It’s been the greatest thing ever, and I am so freaking lucky. You are so, so right.
UC: Yes. Yes! Thank goodness for the husbands, honestly. And truthfully, I’m not a super-social person, so it works out well. But ack! Those one or two days every month or so are bru-TAL
Leah: You’re on, baby.
Jen: Thank you. Honestly, I don’t know what to say, because you are so, so nice. And yah, Chicago. Apparently there is a biz conference in March in NYC, but the actual one is in Chicago…I think? Ah, it’s so confusing! I hope you’re there, and I hope the diving Miss M. Sarcomical is there, too.
BC: I emailed you! Gaak, you, too are too nice. Honestly, I’m so sorry if I’m being wholly ungracious, it’s just that I’m so not used to such compliments and my gut instinct is to lecture you on how wrong you are and how categorically un-cool I am.
20. Bethany Coffey | August 1st, 2006 at 6:59 pm
But isnt un-categorical coolness the best kind? Yes. Yes I think so!
21. T | August 1st, 2006 at 8:35 pm
I’ve emailed, and hi! again, I just want to remind you not to hate on FL! South Florida is void of rednecks, I swear. And there are things to do and people who are normal and witty, trendy and fun. We still don’t have seasons down here, but we do still have sunsets. Don’t make a total stranger visit and kidnap you to tour through the state! (jk, of course, although I’d love to meet you) Anyway, it’s not florida’s fault. We get such a bad rep, from the Northern half. They’re the cousin we pretend we don’t have…
22. Frizz | August 2nd, 2006 at 9:27 pm
Jonna,
You moved to the wrong coast of Florida. The east coast is MUCH better!!
Although, I hate the lack of seasons and some of the political issues we have here, it’s not so bad. unfortunately, your area is known more for being the home to a lot of retirees.
Good luck for the next year though!!!
HUGS!
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