what i know to be true.

The year was 2017. Megan was on her annual trip to Portland. It was probably grey and rainy and cold outside. We’d probably had a late night the evening before. And, if those two things were true, then we definitely didn’t want to do much on whatever day this was written — lounging, watching New Girl, drinking coffee, reading our new books from Powell’s. And, when we’d cycled through all those, we did what any gals born in the early 90s do with a notebook, pen, and some time to kill.

We played a game of MASH.

You remember this game, right? The one where your entire future is determined by the size of a spiral circle your friend draws. The one where the most important pieces of your future are not only the city where you’ll live and the job you’ll have but also — at least in my preteen versions of MASH — the color of the car you’ll drive and the kind of wedding dress you’ll wear. (I went through a looooong, weird phase in middle school where everything was going to be silver. Silver house! Silver car! Silver wedding dress!) From these games, I’ve married countless exes and crushes and celebrities. I’ve been a therapist and a teacher and the winner of American Idol. And I’ve had anywhere from one to seven to 25 dogs and children (but, always, always a dog).

From the start, I knew MASH couldn’t accurately predict my future. I knew it was just a game. I knew that what was written on these pieces of paper wouldn’t come true. It couldn’t! Probably not. And yet, I’d always pin just a little bit of hope or wonder on the every-fifth-answer that got circled. Even as an adult, I’d think, “Well, maybe I could be a Broadway actress. Maybe, in another life, I could meet and marry Ryan Gosling. Maybe I could move to Norway. Or New York City. Or Minneapolis.”

Megan and I have written lots of things in notebooks together over the years — goals, resolutions, diaries of our trips together so we always remember the four hours we spent at an AT&T on New Year’s Eve or the random house party we went to in Arizona. And we’ve played many games of MASH throughout our friendship, too — while waiting at the airport, flying on planes, during sleepovers. So this one game where MASH told me that I’d be moving to the Twin Cities didn’t stick with me. I didn’t have any big revelations once it was circled. I didn’t set my sights on moving to the Cities right at that moment, or make an action plan and move forward with it as soon as the game was done. It was circled (along with the rest of my MASH-decided life plan), and then I moved on.

I’ve wondered about living in the Twin Cities for a while, but those wonderings never turned into anything more than that. I wasn’t sure I’d ever live there, especially after planting myself back in Fargo-Moorhead. But then the world changed this spring, and so did my plans. And so did my ideas of what I thought I would do next, or could do next, or wanted to do next.

So my tentative wonderings about the Twin Cities turned into more serious wonderings. And then those more serious wonderings turned into tentative conversations. And then those tentative conversations turned into something more: “Maybe I can do this.”

But moving is exhausting, job searching is overwhelming, and both of those things feel particularly heightened and hard during this time in the world. Was I really going to do this? Was now the right time to do this? And, even at almost-30 years old, I’ve asked myself too many times: Will other people think this is the right choice? 

I found myself thinking about that word — right — a lot. I’d catch myself wondering if my plans were right or wrong, easily switching into either/or thinking, even though I try to keep my feet planted in the world of both/and. Who’s to say what’s right or wrong for my life, except for me? Through it all, while I’ve been trying to shift away from wondering if what I’m doing is right, I do know one thing.

These wonderings that turned into conversations that turned into, “Okay! I’m doing this?! I’m doing this!” felt good. They felt true. I felt that it was “right,” not in that there was an unlived, opposite, “wrong” choice. But it was right because I felt it deep in my bones, even when I’ve been nervous and scared of the unknown. Even when I know I’m going to miss my mom and dog, my cozy apartment, the life I’ve built and lived in Fargo-Moorhead. Even with all that, this still feels like the truest choice I can make for myself right now.

After I had my first tentative conversation about moving to the Twin Cities with Megan, she pulled out that same notebook and handed me the slip of paper at the top of this post. She’d saved that little square of mine, knowing that one day this circled “Minneapolis” might become more than a MASH answer.

A few weeks later, she mailed me this quote by Cheryl Strayed: “Trusting yourself means living out what you already know to be true.” I wrote this quote, probably five years ago. I sent it to her in a card, while she was in the middle of her own deep figuring-things-out phase. It’s lived on her fridge since then, but made its way back to me. Soon, it’ll find a home in our new place.

So, I’m moving to the Twin Cities next month. Now, this is more than an answer made by a spiral circle. It’s a deliberate choice I’m making for this next phase of life — on and off paper.

Here’s to this next, true thing in my life. Fargo, I’m not going far — the drive is the perfect distance to listen to the Hamilton soundtrack in its entirety and sit with your feelings for awhile. Come stay with Megan and I in our cutie little duplex once things calm down. All are welcome for a drink on our patio. 

And Twin Cities, hi! I’m so excited to get to know you.

the answer was yes.

When I flew to Fargo-Moorhead to interview for my job that wasn’t mine at the time, I snuck away to young blood. I had extended my trip past the typical 36-hours-across-the-country-and-back schedule that’s typical in Residence Life to make a long weekend out of it — the “it” not being the interview, but the being home. I was in the *tHicK* of it then: my last term of grad school, my last months in my job, balancing being present for my education and my students’ education, their lives and my own life, while white-knuckling the looming figure-out-a-job-and-geographical-location decision.

So I was home, but I had articles to read and reports to respond to and, beyond that, a deeper question: Could I live here? Could I make this town home again, all on my own? So I went to Young Blood on a Saturday afternoon, just me. Not I-grew-up-in-Fargo me or I-went-to-college-here me, but I-might-move-here-as-a-27-year-old me. I bought a cup of coffee and a refill and perched myself at the window seat. Between sending GIFs of reassurance to my RAs after a hard duty night and underlining a source for my COMPS, I let the question wander around my brain and my heart: Could I live here? Could I find a church and a coffee shop and a community here? Could I make this place home again? I imagined coming to this coffee shop on a different Saturday in a different month, with a different job and responsibilities, maybe to read. or to write or blog, or to make friends with the baristas or smile at a handsome man from across the room (hey, a gal can dream). I imagined having coffee dates with old and new friends, what it might feel like to be a regular somewhere, to belong here.

There’s much more to say but this caption is already long so the answer was yes. Yes, I could. A complicated yes at times, and not to all the questions I asked back then, but still yes. This is home. Where I read and write and have coffee dates, where I order my first cup for here, my refill to go. This photo was taken this morning, looking out that same window.

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.