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. :)

for good.

I've heard it said,
That people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn.
And we are led to those
Who help us most to grow if we let them.
And we help them in return.
Well, I don't know if I believe that's true
But I know I'm who I am today
Because I knew you.

—

We needed a song for the 9th grade talent show. 

Someone — maybe her, maybe our choir director, maybe one of our many musical theatre-obsessed friends — recommended a duet from a popular musical that would be just perfect for an alto and a soprano: “What is This Feeling” from Wicked. We didn’t know the tune but quickly fell in love with it: how it played up our personalities (me, the naive goody-two-shoes; she, a bit more sassy), our cheesy choreography (lots of grapevining toward each other and pointing at each other), and the perfectly timed “Boo!” and “Aah!” at the end. We practiced in my bedroom and decorated green and pink t-shirts with our names on the back, like our own kind of theatre jerseys, and performed for the rest of the choir during 3rd period. “Loathing” became our song, and we called it that even though we knew it wasn’t the title. Our non-theatre friends would ask us to perform it in their basements on Friday nights; if they didn’t ask, we’d make them listen to us anyway. 

—

I stared down at the empty stage, bouncing my legs up and down like I always do.

I sat on stage right, high up in the balcony, nestled between two of my best theatre (and real-life) friends. It was my first time in New York City, my first time to a Broadway show, and my first time hearing the entirety of the Wicked soundtrack. The first note blared from the pit orchestra -- no peaceful musical overview of the show, no calm introduction to the night, just a straight shot into "No One Mourns the Wicked" -- followed by the next note and the next note, and I was in tears. There were no humans on the stage yet, no words spoken and no lyrics sung, but the chords were enough. I don’t remember if I had thought to pack Kleenex, or if someone handed me one after that first song, or if I just sniffled my way through the entire show, wiping my tears on the coat I had bought just for this senior year trip. I do remember turning to my right and grasping one of those best friend’s hands and holding on for dear, dear life until applauding like the high school girls we were when the song was over.

—

It was always 82 miles. It was always one hour.

Every other weekend during college, I drove north on Friday nights to spend the weekend with my boyfriend at the time. I threw my backpack (thebooks and pens and highlighters replaced with clothes and makeup and a hair straightener) in the backseat, lowered myself into the driver's seat, and grabbed a burned CD from the glove compartment given to me by that same best friend whose hand I grasped so tightly years before. As I merged onto I-94, I pressed play and listened to that same, blaring first note. That hour was almost the perfect amount of time to sing along to the entire soundtrack -- always skipping "A Sentimental Man," but replaying "As Long As You’re Mine" a few times -- before I arrived to my own, 20-year-old, a-bit-more-scholastic version of Fiyero. For that hour each weekend, and sometimes on the return trip, I paused the real world, full of papers and decisions and my own feelings, and belted out words about flying and being green and also being blonde, because when you’re driving alone you get to play both lead roles.

—

Some things were the same. Some things were different.

A few weekends ago, I took myself to see Wicked. I took the bus downtown instead of wandering through Times Square to get there. I sat center stage in the 2nd tier balcony instead of on stage right. I was alone, but that was okay: I brought my own wad of toilet paper from the bathroom stall just outside of Aisle 4. I still bounced my legs and got butterflies in my stomach as the lights went down. I mouthed the words to every song and laughed along at every joke and found new ones I missed. I spent intermission furiously typing most of these sentences in my iPhone’s Notes, recalling the 9th grade choreography and the senior year trip and the college year drives. I held my breath and then quickly exhaled as (spoiler alert!) Elphaba emerges from the trapdoor. I was one of the first in my balcony to pop up at the curtain call, fiercely clapping my hands and sneakily wiping my eyes. I took a selfie with the poster instead of a dramatic, posed photo in front of the billboard.

—

It’s amazing how this one little thing — two-and-a-half hours of words and lyrics composed in the late 90s, which was based on a book written in the mid 90s, which was based on a movie that premiered in the late 30s, which was based on a book that was published in 1900 — can show up so frequently and have such a strong hold on my life. It makes me wonder where else Elphaba, Glinda, and that first, blaring note have shown up for people. How have these songs, these characters, and this story shaped and accompanied and held people? Did Stephen Schwartz and Gregory Maguire and MGM Studios and L. Frank Baum know how their music and words would become permanent placeholders in so many lives?

How many other things like that — like songs and books and quotations and even other humans — show up for us?

I wanted to call this essay anything other than For Good. I mean, really — I can’t think of something more creative than the most popular (and semi-cheesy and sentimental) song title of the musical about which I’m writing? But the answer is no, I can’t. Because cheesy or not, these vignettes of my life over the past ten years — involving friendships that have lasted over distance, other relationships that haven’t, and reminders of music’s powerful ability to reach you no matter where you are — have all had a common note: Wicked. Elphaba and Glinda. That first, blaring note is what has shown up for me. I’m sure I could have found another musical, or a song or a book or a human, that has been a similar throughline in my life.

But maybe it’s true, what they sing in “For Good.” That people — and musicals and songs and books — come into our lives for a reason. My duet partner and my Elphaba, Sara. My best friend and my hand-grasper, Catherine. My then-boyfriend and my then-Fiyero. That they bring us something we must learn, even if we don’t recognize the importance of it until years later. How friendships can last across time and distance. How performing will always be part of who you are, even though now it looks a bit different from when you were 14. How it’s okay to take up space and be in the spotlight instead of the ensemble, and how everyone really does deserve that chance to fly. And how we’re led — drawn or pulled, even — to those people and things, those experiences and moments, that help us to grow — into how to be a friend, how to be a girlfriend, how to be a human.

I think I do believe that’s true. I don’t think I would have written this if I didn’t believe that, somehow, the things that show up in our lives are meant to be there. That we are who we are because of them, because of how they have shown up — once or twice or repeatedly, quietly or loudly or sometimes annoyingly — in our lives. That these things know us as much as we know them. And that (and here it comes, the real cheesy kicker you have been waiting for since you read the title of this essay) they have changed us…

For good.

Wicked in NYC, 2009 & Wicked in PDX, 2015

august 17.

I've downloaded Timehop, allowing the alerts to greet me as soon as I unlock my phone. I've enabled Facebook's "On This Day," marking the notifications unread until I've scrolled through each memory. I start most days this way: lying in bed after my alarm goes off, scrolling through memory lane. Last year, I Instagrammed the beautiful waterfalls I hiked past while on retreat for my new job. Three years ago, I tweeted about being one week away from hopping on a plane to India. Seven years ago, my best high school friend wrote on my wall to tell me that she would always always always be my friend.

These snippets of the past are kind of like the songs that bring you back to that one night, that one feeling, that one moment in time. But these snippets are always the good stuff -- they're the songs you danced to at that sleepover, the one that played during that kiss, and the one you belted at karaoke. I see the picture of the waterfall and get the same excited butterflies in my stomach that I had as a three-day-old employee. I see the tweet and physically ache for Bangalore and the feeling of hopping on an international flight with my travel pack. I see the post from my friend and immediately screen shot it to her with a few heart emojis, grateful that her promise is still true. These are such good moments.

But what about the rest?

What about the nitty gritty stuff of our hearts and guts that isn't recorded on social media? What about the just-as-real (and maybe even-more-real) stuff of our lives that was around before social media? Timehop and Facebook leave out the stuff that reminds us of the loneliness or the recent breakup or the friendship drama. They don't play the song that we looped on repeat when we said goodbye for the last time, or the one that we had to avoid for awhile, or the one that has always made us tear up a bit. There aren't many Instagrams or tweets that bring up hard stuff, or under-the-surface stuff. This is, of course, by our own choosing -- we purposefully record and remember the butterflies over the breakups, the excitement over the dread, the "life is great" over the "life is great but also really complicated." But still, we feel the real stuff's absence; it's the missing part of our perfectly crafted and curated scroll down memory lane each day.

I needed to look up a date and a memory for an essay-in-progress in an old journal tonight and found that real stuff staring at me from the pages of my bright orange, tulip-covered journal from the summer of 2005. I flipped through pages and found unsent love letters to multiple boys, printed transcripts of AOL Instant Message conversations with those same boys, and my insights into friendship and relationships and school. I found today's date.

August 17, 2005: "I'm ready for school to start. Pumped. I love rain. Last night we went to bed at 5! Time for me to roll out = now (11:22)!"

I read the full entry, giggling alone in my apartment and wondering why I ever thought I should use the phrase "roll out," even if it was just for my eyes only. I returned the journal to its box and pulled out my bright pink, daisy-covered one from the summer of 2006.

August 17, 2006: "He was like 'Where have you been?' and I said 'around.' He was like 'around, huh?' and I said 'Yeah I've sent you a few texts the past few days' and he goes 'yeah' and some other stuff. He said he'd try to call me sometime. I think it was fate."

First, I laughed. (Fate? Really?) And then I kept searching through the pages, unearthing the multicolored hearts and flipping open the elephant with the balloon and holding the engraved feathers, finding the under-the-surface words and feelings from each August 17, the stuff and stories that my Timehop and Facebook wouldn't bring up each year.

August 17, 2008: "I went to a High School Musical 2 party! It was super fun even though I didn't know everyone there very well!"

August 17, 2012: "I explained that I couldn't let him take me out to dinner because I had just gotten out of a long-term relationship and am going away. In other words, this is how my heart feels: UGGGGGHHHH!!!!!!!!!"

August 17, 2014: "How on earth will I know if this is the right path for me? Don't I just need to take one step and then see how that goes? What if I change my mind? Then I do. Dreams and plans and timelines can change. They always do."

As I read each entry, I moved past the picture-perfect parts and into the "life is great but also really complicated" ones. There wasn't a filter or spellcheck or missing snippets in this memory lane. It was all there, messy handwriting and weird analogies and rambling monologues and all. 

And now, this one's there too.

August 17, 2015: I had already Instagrammed my three closest gals from our 7 am breakfast date today. I took my first coffee art photo and started writing my "I just started drinking coffee" Instagram post in my head. I snapped a few pictures of my students, capturing the silly icebreakers and the birthday celebrations and the sacred conversations. But there is more to this August 17 than these good, post-worthy snippets. There was the walk home from work -- to a home I've been living in for over a year now, to a bed which is finally unlofted after an epic battle with the mattress and frame. There was the writing about Wicked and watching Ross and Rachel and their new baby on Friends and, now, the reliving of so many August 17s. Good and hard, big and little, and under-the-surface pieces that make up this day.

According to Timehop and Facebook, August 17 has not been a special day in the history of my life. Except that it is. Of course it is. Because life -- good, bad, and real -- happened then and is happening now. August 17 was fun in 2008 and heartbreaking in 2012 and insightful in 2014. And now, in 2015, it's an ode to my journaling, or to anyone's journaling, or to creating an outlet to remember the under-the-surface, "life is great but also really complicated" stuff somehow. It's also a reminder that memories exist outside of those that social media reminds us of, that the unseen and undocumented snippets matter just as much -- if not more -- than those that show up on our screens. And it is a plea to my future self, who will see this on August 17, 2016: sit with and learn from and let all the snippets of your life, from August 17 and all the other days, show up beyond your screen.

Let them live in your heart and guts.