hello, my name is...

“I have to think about it.”

I stared at him and kept my mouth shut. I thought, “Maybe he means he has to think about what he wants to say to me right now. He wants to really get it right and so he’s taking time to think about it.”

Silence.

I kept staring at him and kept keeping my mouth shut, though my eyes were slowly narrowing and my lips sucking themselves right back into my mouth to keep myself from talking. I thought, “Okay! He’s still thinking. That’s fine. I am a human who is full of patience and understanding. I am not annoyed or sad, but I am actually glad he’s taking the time to really think about his response to my question.”

Silence, still.

The question I asked wasn’t, “What’s your favorite song in Hamilton?” or “What should we cook for dinner tonight?” or “What are your thoughts about aliens or God or the concept of mass incarceration?” These are the questions you’d need some time to think about. 

The actual question I asked doesn’t matter that much. It may have been, “What is this relationship for you?” or “Are you willing to show up for me?” or “Do you care about me?” I had asked all of those and then a few more vulnerable ones. His answers were all something similar:

“I don’t know.”
“I’m not sure what you want me to say.”
“I have to think about it.”

Regardless of the wording of the question, those are not quite the words you expect to hear from a human with whom you have any sort of romantic relationship. Or any meaningful relationship, for that matter — friendship, coworker, or otherwise.

First: What?! Second: Ouch.

While there is not a one-size-fits-all, step-by-step guide, Merriam-Webster definition of love, or dating, or relationships, I sense that there are at least a few shared truths that we hold as important. We want someone who we like spending time with and who likes spending time with us, too. We want someone to talk and listen to and who will listen to us, too. Someone who makes our lives better than they were without them, whatever our definitions of “better” may be. We want someone we can show up for, and someone who shows up for us. We want someone who is steady in how they feel about us, is clear about much they care for us, and someone who takes in all the complicated parts of us, the good and the bad and the weird, and responds accordingly.

We want to be seen.

I have an embroidered patch on the whiteboard above my desk. It looks like one of those name tags you get at a networking event:

Steph sent me a digital mock-up of this patch last August, during a moment when I was at my wit’s (wits’?) end. Later, in a ridiculous, sleep-deprived, lightning-speed text message thread, we dreamed up a life where one day, when we’re roommates in a nursing home, we’ll wear matching denim jackets with hundreds of matching, embroidered patches. Patches that represent our friendship, our lives, and the cores of who we are. This patch would be our first, capturing so many of those complicated parts of us.

So I bought a real-life version of that patch for Steph and then bought one for myself, too. We said that we should wear these words as a name tag every day so that anyone who encountered us would know who we were, and would be invited to respond accordingly.

Hello, I know who I am in my body and my soul (and I hope you see that knowing, too). Hello, I am not only comfortable with feelings but I’m going to TALK about them (and I hope you’re willing to, too). Hello, I drink a dangerous amount of coffee each morning and yet I am level-headed and can get shit done and am calm in a crisis (and I hope you recognize my contributions, too). Hello, I know my worth (and you should recognize my worth, too).

Hello. This is who I am. See me, or I’ll see you riiiiight out the door.

Because when someone sees you, they don’t need time to think about things like if they want to text back or make time to see you or how they feel.

And the people we invite into our sacred lives -- the family we stay connected to, the friends who become our chosen family, and especially the people we invite into our calendars and beds and hearts -- they need to see us. Every single one of us deserves that from the people we hold near to us.

He and I were talking through a screen when he couldn’t answer my questions. I was at my desk, looked up at my whiteboard, and saw that name tag in my line of vision. Bright red, staring me down, nudging me to come back to myself. And I thought, “He doesn’t see me. He doesn’t know who I am. And it seems that he doesn’t want to try. So why am I?”

I took a deep breath. And I told him that no, actually, he didn’t need to think about it. That in itself was an answer. And I wasn’t willing to wait for someone who didn’t know, on a gut-level reaction, that they wanted me. 

And while I’d like to say it felt immediately empowering to realize and name that, I hung up and cried -- the shoulder-shaking, are-these-tears-or-is-this-snot? kind of crying. Just sobbed into my lap for a good 10 minutes because -- despite what I knew deep in my core about worthiness and despite looking up and whispering to myself, “Hello, my name is Sexy Empowered Emotionally Mature Caffeinated Calm Woman!!!” -- it hurts when someone you’ve opened yourself up to, who you want to see you, is unwilling or unable to do that.

Even if it breaks our hearts and makes us cry or scream, we must walk away from those who do not see us, and those who aren’t willing to try. Even if we’re tempted to, instead, change ourselves because maybe that version will be seen -- to dye our hair or to not ask the question or to pretend we like the things they like that we actually do not like  -- we have to leave. We have to cancel the happy hour or skip the holiday gathering, have the breakup conversation or another hard one, put distance between them and us, or -- in this case -- hang up for the last time. 

I got out of my chair and went to get a Kleenex to sop up the tear-snot. I looked in the mirror and, despite the blotchy face and hazy eyes and achy heart, saw myself. That hurt, yes, but I looked in my own eyes and knew it would hurt even more to have kept going on like nothing was wrong. To keep going without being seen.

And then what? What do we do in the wake of not being seen?

We find those who do see us. We must hold on tightly to those who really, truly see our whole selves, who are willing to sit in the muck of life with us as we navigate our own, forever-changing versions of “Hello, my name is…” The ones we call in the aftermath of a conversation like this, who can grieve with us in the pain and celebrate with us for trusting our knowing, our worth.

They are the moms and sisters and best friends and maybe even the lovers, the mentors and bosses and sometimes even the unexpected ones (the baristas or the writers or the long-lost-loves who show up again, years later). They are the ones who want to bear witness to all the complicated, wonderful, raw parts of us. They tell us that they do, and they show up.

And they don’t have to think about it. Not for one second.

the ending i got.

We held an end-of-year banquet for our Residence Life student leaders last week. This night usually involves getting dressed up, taking group photos, handing out awards, and -- most importantly -- intentionally coming together as one 60+ person team. Instead, on that night, I used my eyebrow pencil and put on a real bra for the first time in 33 days, threw on a sweater over the leggings I’d worn every day that week, and sat in front of a computer screen that held the faces of humans I’ve worked with -- and have cared about so deeply -- this year.

To start our banquet, my boss gave an introduction and a heartfelt thank you to our students (that made me cry, obviously), and ended with: “This is not the ending we wanted, but it is the ending we got.”

Last month, like most colleges in the country, my institution made the responsible choice to move to remote learning for the rest of the year. Most of our student staff quickly left campus. So did our residents, some taking everything with them, some leaving belongings behind that they’ll return to campus to pack soon. Outside my apartment building, there are four cars in a parking lot that’s usually full. I walk through campus often but don’t encounter anyone (except the turkeys and squirrels who are thriving with their new freedom). Over the past weeks (it’s really only been weeks, not months?), what it means to be a Residence Life professional changed. 

And because I am leaving my job this summer -- there, I said it without hiding it in a sneaky, wordy Instagram post -- it will never go back to the way it was.

I’ve tried writing about leaving my job three different times now. I first wrote about it in January, but didn’t publish anything because it felt too soon. I’ve known I was leaving since last summer, when I had my first real wonderings about what it would feel like to return home from a workout, or after a night out with girlfriends, or with a man I’m dating and not run into students who recognize me because of the posters of my face plastered up in their hallway or because we met earlier that week for a conduct meeting. My boss has known since November, my colleagues have known since January, and I told my staff in February. This has been my plan for a while now -- a chance to enter my 30s outside the walls of a residence hall. 

But sharing in January still felt too soon. So I wrote something and then I sat on it through January. And February. This was normal for me; I write things and sit on them wayyyy more frequently than I write things and actually put them out in the world. That writing was, may I say, some nice, hopeful shit centered around the “both/and” of loving something and also leaving it, filled with well-crafted metaphors, thoughtful reflections, and even some space to add what I was going to do next.

But then it was March, and the world changed. None of my words made sense to share anymore. Who am I to wax poetic about a beautiful theological concept in the midst of a global pandemic? I’m a complicated being full of multilayered truths, sure, but the only truth I am filled with right now is that I really do not know WTF is happening. The excitement about finding what was next for my career, my trust in embracing the unknown, my big, brave steps into a world outside of Residence Life? It all vanished when I realized that I was willingly leaving not only my stable job but my housing in the midst of a global health pandemic and the highest rates of unemployment in years. Oops.

So then, with many deep breaths, I tried to write something new. It included different words meant to make ~MeAnInG* of this mess, lots of feelings about the sadness of my job (as I knew it) ending just like that, and a few feeble attempts to be brave despite the realities of the world. It was all a bit dark and rambly and, despite being filled with emotion, didn’t capture how I felt or what I wanted to say. I deleted the whole thing. (Just kidding, I never delete anything, so it’s sitting in my drafts folder along with my January words, where all of my unpublished drafts go to die. Until I eventually resurrect them between four months and three years later.)

And then last week, I sat in that Zoom banquet with my colleagues and students, celebrating our year together and this weird-ass end to it that we didn’t ask for, and I reflected on my own endings this year -- the ones I lived without knowing it. 

Without knowing it, I held my last one-to-ones in my office. My students talked about classes and tests, lamented about group projects and overlapping deadlines. I asked about their residents, followed up on roommate conflicts, checked in on their upcoming programs. We’d just returned from spring break and had a whole quarter ahead of us -- so much time! I probably rushed through them in order to rush off to the next meeting or get to the next item on my to-do list.

Without knowing it, I held my last staff meeting -- a wild two hours with a chatty, newly-formed group from two buildings. We talked about expectations of each other and how we wanted to show up as our best selves every Tuesday night. We wrote these on a big piece of yellow butcher paper and tacked it to the wall, so we could be reminded of them each time we gathered. But that was our last time gathering, at least face-to-face.

There wasn’t a final conduct meeting, or an end-of-year party, or a roommate mediation (actually, I’m okay that there wasn’t another one of those). So many traditions, rhythms, and mile-markers of an academic year skipped over, just like that. Without realizing it, I moved through a season of lasts I’d been eager to pay attention to and hold space in my heart for. I wanted to enter each of these endings knowing they were the final time, so I could properly say goodbye to what has been my career and home for years.

I’m realizing that maybe it’s better that I couldn’t make a running list of every “last” in my Residence Life career, pinpointing and preparing for those exact moments. If I’d had the time, I toooootally would have made a checklist with all the things I wanted to do one last time -- a bucket list of sorts -- turning really special moments into to-do lists for my planner. In my head, it was because I wanted to prepare for them, make sure I always remembered them, to count them as special. But let’s be real -- I wanted something I could control in the midst of inching closer and closer toward an Unknown Life outside of Residence Life. That list would have turned those moments not into something to be fully present for and experience, but as something else to accomplish. To check off. To get through.

It’s better that I had all of these lasts without realizing they were happening, without the chance to put extra pressure on myself (or others) to make each one meaningful, special, “one for the books.”  Because even without naming them as my endings, that’s what they were. And all of them were important and meaningful. Sacred, even.

Our last building-wide program was not a program at all, but a series of sex education booklets my staff made and delivered to every resident in their hall. I got to proofread them before they sent them out, and was struck by their inclusivity, dedication, and humor. There weren’t any end-of-year parties this year, but that means my last one included a homemade slip-’n-slide and getting pied in the face. And while I won’t have the traditional photo memories from our end-of-year banquet -- dressed up, “let’s make a funny face,” selfies with everyone -- I have this. And that can be enough.

These weren’t the endings I wanted, but they’re the ones I got. And despite it all, what I got was good. Not just these endings, but my whole career in Residence Life. It was all so very good. It was hard and unexpected and challenging and hilarious and full of tears and laughter and late nights and emails and duty calls and I never could have planned the way these last four years went if I tried. It was all so good.

It was all more than enough. 

this is a story.

This is a story of the closest thing I’ve had to love-at-first-sight paired with the biggest heartbreak I’ve yet to know. The feelings are years old now; I wrote most of this in late 2016, when the breakup was raw but my memory was clear. I added a few things in early 2017, after time had passed and I saw Hamilton and my feelings morphed from anguish to acceptance. This story is years old, though I’ve returned to it a few times each year, wondering if this was the time to finally hit “Publish.”

And now is the time. Not because of any anniversary or revelation or resurfacing feelings, but because these words do no good sitting with the other 21 drafts I have in my “Writing” folder. Though these feelings and this story are old, they were mine. Are mine, still. And putting them into the world is a reminder — to me and to you — that there is no shame in loving hard, hurting deeply, and the work it takes to pick yourself up from that. I reread this story and see — I can feel — who I was that summer, that season of love and heartbreak, that October night when I wrote most of this.

Maybe you will find a piece of yourself in these words, too.

//

I walked into my apartment after work and it felt void of him. The lights were off and it was already dark outside; I worked well past five-’o-clock to avoid this exact moment. The floor was clean; I power cleaned last night, when I’m stressed or sad or need something I can control. It was as if, through last night’s fervid vacuuming and dusting, I could will any trace of him from this place.

He was the first guest in my home. He came to visit two weeks after I moved in, ten days after I started a new job.

“Is that going to be okay?” he asked, cautious and careful of providing space, allowing time to settle and be alone. 

“Of course,” I replied. “I want you here. I want you to be a part of this.”

He was the first to see my color-coordinated books on their shelves. He crouched over to read all of their spines before taking off his jacket, turning back to me to ask when I had gotten this one, how I had liked that one. He raised an eyebrow when he saw I owned “My Struggle” by Karl Ove Knausgaard, found the spine of “Becoming Wise,” the book we had both been reading when we met. His one carry-on bag for the weekend, which I’d learn was typical of his minimalism-except-books lifestyle, was the first thing to sit in my mustard chair, spilling open with the four books he brought for the plane.

He was the first to sleep in my bed; it had been delivered just hours before he arrived, which was not the plan. It should have arrived a week or so before, but a mix-up with the IKEA order and the IKEA delivery company brought it to my apartment during my lunch hour on the day of his arrival. I scrambled to put on sheets and a comforter, pretending like I had not been sleeping on a makeshift bed on the floor for two weeks. He crawled into this new bed even before I did, while I was washing my face at the sink and feeling self-conscious about my choice of sleeping attire, and my whole life he was witnessing.

We hadn’t seen each other since the beginning of June, and even then we hadn’t spent more than 80-some hours together. We had been far from our homes, across the country for a conference unrelated to our day jobs. We were pulled together in a sterile, fluorescent-lit classroom by an icebreaker, a meet-and-greet game where everyone in the room stands up, the facilitator asks a question, and you travel to either side of the room based on your answer. This side for Coca Cola, the other side for Pepsi. This side for waking up early, the other for staying up late.

The third or fourth question was, “Are you planning to go to seminary?”; this side for yes, that side for no.

Our answers led us to the middle of the room. We found ourselves in a circle with two other faces I will never remember because I only saw him. 

“I’m not sure,” I said. 

“Me neither,” he said. “Maybe.” 

I talked about why, he talked about why, and I tried to remember the last time I made such prolonged eye contact with someone. The next question was asked. I don’t remember it, but I know we moved to opposite sides of the room. 

But we were pulled together again and again. We were signed up for the same breakout sessions. We ended up in the same small group for discussion. We sat near each other during presentations and meals and – finally, on the last night of the conference – at a bar with the rest of our newly-made friends.

We walked there together, slightly behind everyone else, talking and asking questions and digging deeper into who the other was. He wrote; I did, too, but not with as much discipline as him. I went to school in the Midwest; so had he. We cared about books and coffee and our families, had a complicated relationship with the church and God, and searched for (and usually found) meaning everywhere and in everything.

We arrived at the bar. A drag queen was singing “Don’t Stop Believin’” and we took shots of whiskey. We danced to Whitney Houston and drank gins. We danced to every song in a circle with our larger group until, finally, we found each other face-to-face. The music was still blaring, the drag queens singing another song, but it went silent for me as we left the bar so we could talk without the strobe lights. We found a bench and talked for almost four hours. We kissed a bit, too, but mostly talked and talked and talked until it was five-’o-clock in the morning and breakfast was at 7:30. I snuck back to my hotel room, my conference roommate peacefully asleep, and willed myself to obey the drag queen’s lyrics as I tried to fall asleep: Hold on to that feeling...

We sat next to each other at the final session the next morning. I remember nothing of what was said, but I remember when our knees moved from three inches to one inch away from each others’. He bought me a coffee before we left for the airport and asked if he could write to me, if we could stay in touch through letters. We did. He sent me letters and poems and his favorite book. I wrote back.

He came to visit.

He quickly became a home for me, for my heart and soul after weary days. I loved him so quickly, so deeply, so fully. That’s how love happens sometimes. It sneaks up on you and hits you over the head with the best kind of frying pan — but one that spits out cartoon hearts and unicorns and, instead of giving you a bump on the head, fills it with the reality of your love for this other being and their love for you. His was the conversation I looked forward to each night. Our trips to see each other were the highlight of each month. It was the kind of love that felt like home, that made me want to stay in each present moment because it was so, so good, but that also made me want to fast forward to see where it would lead us.

But sometimes, a different kind of frying pan sneaks up on you -- heartbreak. We did not last past fall, after secrets surfaced and I learned new truths and had to come to terms with a different reality of our time together. We broke up over the phone; he offered to fly to me, to work on this in person, but I went dancing with friends instead. I had a plane ticket to visit him booked for later that month, purchased the day before but already past the 24-hour refund deadline. I went anyway, saw Hamilton, visited friends, and didn’t reach out to see him.

I will see him in my kitchen, standing at my counter and making a pour over for me; standing at my bookshelf, quietly brushing over each title; reading in my bed, lying on “his” side. He was here, had been here, and will always be a part of this time of my life, this home. But, slowly by slowly, I’ve been removing the traces of him: the photo of us taken at the bar pulled off the wall; the postcard he sent from a trip removed from the nightstand; the last of the coffee he brought for me gone. Those memories and traces have been pulled into a folder and tucked away in a corner of a closet.

And tonight, with the lights off and the quiet and few traces left of him, I could catch a glimpse of how this could be okay. How I will be okay, how my home will be my home, even without him. After I turned the lights on, and the reality reemerged – he is not here – I whispered:

But I still am.

MOORHEAD

I was just trying to update my Instagram bio.

“Just moved back to the Fargo-MOORHEAD area.”

I didn’t intend for Moorhead to come out as MOORHEAD. I clicked back to MOORHEAD and tried typing it again, but before I could click the X that stops your phone’s autocorrect suggestion, it changed itself back. MOORHEAD.

And since I read into everything in my life, I started to wonder about MOORHEAD. When had I typed MOORHEAD instead of Moorhead? Why was it defaulting to this all-caps, seems-like-you’re-screaming version of my new city? Why did seeing MOORHEAD make me want to giggle but also burst into tears? It’s like my phone was trying to tell me, “Hello! Why yes, you are in MOORHEAD. Yes, not only in Minnesota, but MOORHEAD! MOORHEAD. You live nowhere else in the world but MOORHEAD.”

When seemingly insignificant things like this happen (again, I was just trying to update my Instagram bio with where I live and a few new emojis) and cause me to pause (I spent about 10 minutes staring at MOORHEAD, before I decided I should sit down and write something about it ), I often take them as signs to look more closely at something. To pay attention, to dig deeper, to search for meaning. I can take a sentence I overhear, or a 30-second conversation with a barista, or a photo of feet amongst leaves and make it into a reflection on my Enneagram type or love life or vocational life -- sometimes all of those, at the same time.

I took my iPhone’s autocorrected capitalization as an invitation. An invitation to think about the fact that I do, in fact, live in Moorhead. Not Portland, Oregon; a location that I chose, that shaped me, that became a defining part of my identity for five years. A location that became home and that, from the very beginning, a location I wanted to shout from the rooftops in capital letters. PORTLAND! I’m moving to PORTLAND! Even before jumping in a U-Haul without cruise control to make the 1500-mile drive, even before arriving at that first apartment, even before walking to the Starbucks down the street to upload that first blog post, I adopted an identity of Moving to Portland. It was part of my family’s Christmas letters to acquaintances. It was my Current City on Facebook. It was a place on a map that transformed into home, that transformed my life.

Now, I’m navigating a whole new set of life circumstances not in Portland. In July, I hopped in my car and drove across the country and now -- I’m living in Moorhead. It’s been a big-yet-calm shake-up over the last six months. And I haven’t written a thing about it, except maybe an Instagram post in August. A lot of life has happened in these six months and I’ve kept some of it at an arm’s length. My excuse has been because this transition is still happening. It’s not like you move to a place and then the adjustment and feelings and challenges are done the moment the last box is unpacked. The complicated mourning and the bittersweet celebrating don’t find their own places in a drawer as your kitchen knives do. The feelings of, “What the hell did I just do?!” don’t leave your heart at the same time you recycle your last cardboard box. A transition is ongoing and constant and very, very present. Even with all the goodness in it, navigating it can be overwhelming. And lonely.

I started this blog when I lived in Portland. I’ve been a scattered writer over the last four-ish years, letting other good things (friends and love and work and school) and not-as-good things (Netflix and depression and doubt and loneliness) get in the way of tending to this space. This space of writing, reflecting, sharing, repeating the process. And yet these posts, though rare, have made me feel more connected; to myself, to my own life, and to others, somehow. They’ve made me feel less alone in the navigation of difficult change and huge hurts, and in the celebration of small wonders and huge awe.

And so, here I am. And here’s a reintroduction of this little space on the Internet -- with a new look, a new location, a new-yet-same author.

I’m going to accept the little invitations that come my way to remember Portland, through texts and songs and middle-of-the-night memories, to think about Portland, to write the countless stories about the life I lived there. And I’m going to listen for the call to think about and reflect on and wrestle with my life now -- right here in MOORHEAD. Because these invitations are everywhere, if we want them to be -- even in our Instagram bios. They’re in conversations with strangers and friends, street signs and radio commercials, all that we see and hear and feel, if we open ourselves to them.

Here’s to accepting the invitations of our lives. Thanks for accompanying me as I open mine.

life update.

I have moved a lot in my life. I counted once, before my last few moves in Portland. It was in the ‘teens when I took into account my shifts between residence halls and study abroad experiences in college (which I absolutely do). I’m used to moving and I’m actually quite good at it. The sorting and packing and schlepping things from one place to another, the unpacking and organizing and breaking down boxes. I know that moving always involves one 12-hour day when I make a 30-minutes-before-closing trip to Target to stock my kitchen with hot sauce and paper towels. I know that I need to make my bed almost right away after arriving in a new home; I know that it will take me three tries until I get my kitchen organized the way I like it; I know that I will, inevitably, forget to change my address for at least one credit card account. I know what to expect from a first night in a new home and in a new place; the way it doesn’t quite feel familiar and yet you know you’ve come home.

My last few moves have been mostly easy. Moves that coincided with a new job and a new rhythm for my day-to-day life -- bigger shifts than just changing my address and neighborhood. But for the last five years, there were things that remained the same during these moves. My community. My Life Wife. My city. I held tightly to what, and who, remained stable through these shifts, to what kept me grounded in the midst of change. To what keeps me grounded, still.

You can guess where these sentences are headed, yes? I’m moving. Not across town this time. Across states. To Fargo! Or, Moorhead, Minnesota, rather. I’ve accepted a position in Residence Life at Concordia College. At my alma mater.

And in my hometown. It was both surprising and so easy to choose this place after five years of being 1,500 miles away. I will be 10 minutes away from my mom, Gerard, and pet-siblings. I’ll be able to help my grandparents with their gardens (yes, that’s plural because they have two of them) this summer. I can take my goddaughter on after-school dates and celebrate birthdays in-person and hang out with my cousins more than just once a year. I’ll get to know my family as an adult. To repair and grow and nurture relationships that deserve to be attended to up close, face-to-face. I’ll get to know my hometown as an adult. It’s a different place from when I left it in 2013. I’m a different person, too.

When I told my pastor I was moving, she pulled me into a hug and said, “I’m just so excited for you! And I’m so, so sad!” And this rang the most true for me and has stuck with me -- in one breath, I’m describing my new job and apartment and adventure, picking up pace and pitch as I talk about all that is to come. In the next breath, I’m teary-eyed after someone’s asked how I’m doing, as I envision all of the lasts that are so close to arriving right in front of me. All of this is hard. It’s confusing. I am so excited. I am so sad.

I’ve known this news for awhile now. I’ve largely sat on it, quietly telling folks as they’ve asked and as I’ve needed to in order to make arrangements for the next steps: my last day at work, how I’m moving my bones across the country, what I want to do before I leave Portland. Even as someone who writes, I did not want to share this news in this way. It didn’t feel authentic to do a blanket “Life Update!” post on Facebook, sharing the news of this very personal life shift so publicly. As an Type 2 on the Enneagram, I felt a bit nervous about writing a whole post about *me* and *my future* to a bunch of y’all that didn’t even ask for that update. Instead, I dreamed of writing letters, or even just sending personalized text messages, to every human I’ve interacted with in Portland who has made an impact on me in my almost-five years here. Goodbyes and transitions are a beautiful time to do that, to dredge up all the memories and feelings and sap I can muster. To remind your people of how much they mean to you. Y’all know I love that mushy shit.

But that is not the reality of my life.

The reality is that I will spend the next week hauling ass to finish my graduate degree. I’ll spend most of my free hours in yoga pants cross-legged on my couch, squinting at the computer screen as I toggle between Google Docs and the Purdue Owl tab to write my final papers. I will spend the next month tying up the loose ends of my work, having last one-on-ones and writing a transition report and holding this duty phone for the last two times. And the small-but-biggest gaps in between those things will be filled with selling furniture, celebrating a graduation, hosting my family in Portland, and writing myself sticky notes so I remember to eat and shower.

It’s not the most idyllic way to end years in Portland -- no bucket list, no extravagant trips or hikes or adventures. I was bitter about it at first; I had these grand plans of what my last days would look like, all of the things I’ve never done in this city that I would squeeze in before I left. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that if I haven’t done it yet, it’s probably not important to do now. It feels right and beautiful to end my time in Portland just living my regular life -- keeping on with the small-yet-so-very-meaningful things and relationships that have made up my last years here. The students and colleagues and meetings and even the homework and emails and mundane tasks that have filled up my days as I discerned this move, this new job, this shift away from what I’ve come to know and embody and love for the last five years. And that’s enough for me, actually. What these next few weeks hold will be enough -- perfect in its own way. I think, more than anything else, Portland has taught me that. Whatever I am doing, wherever I am, is enough.

So, I sit here on my couch -- in yoga pants and squinting, yes -- sharing this news. Feeling excited. Feeling sad.

To all of my Portland people -- I hope you’ll join me on Saturday, June 23rd for a going away gathering. I’ll be posted up at Laurelhurst Park from 2:00-6:00pm. There will be blankets and picnic tables and food and drink. I love potlucks, so bring a potluck item or drink to share if you’re able. I hope you’ll swing by, even for five minutes, for a hug and conversation and a drink. Here’s the link to a little invitation I made. And if you can’t make it, that’s okay, too. Life is busy. I’m a pretty good pen pal even though I’m the worst texter. I’ve taken a fondness for random phone calls. I actually listen to my voicemails. So even if I don’t see you before I pack my life into my car, please stay in touch.

And to my community in Fargo-Moorhead -- Here I come. I’m ready to start scheduling coffee dates. :)