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| Must. Have. Fun. |
No one (at least in Seattle) ever says "Have a great winter!" or "How's your fall going?" Oh no. Summer is THE moment! That glorious time when Seattleites crawl out of their caves and blind you with their pasty white skin.
As my erstwhile alter ego Breakup Babe the Younger put it, summer is the "moment when everyone else is living out a sun-drenched Coke ad, and you're a broken-hearted, miserable wretch."
(She was good at whining, that BBTY).
Breakups always seem to happen for me right on the precipice of summer, too. So that instead of looking forward to the endless days and balmy nights, I'm cowering in dread.
HOWEVER. We are in a slightly different situation now.
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| Seen in upstate NY |
The edge of The Abyss
My breakup happened 10 months ago.And then, well, I figured once that happened there would be The Abyss. That I would fill with anti-depressants, crying jags, cocktails, dating apps, and men equally crippled by emotional baggage. Kinda like my younger self did (but without the apps or the fixation on marriage [gag!]).
That did not happen.
Instead someone decidedly not crippled showed up. At a time when the last thing I expected was to fall in love. At a time when I probably shouldn't have fallen in love because I hadn't yet escaped the towering inferno that was my marriage.
But, there he was, like a sexy fireman, pulling me out of the wreckage in his strong, tanned arms. And. I. Could. Not. Resist.
Girlfriends on the more sensible end of the spectrum (that is, my complete opposites) counseled me not to rush into anything new. If you get your heart broken now, it will only make things that much worse.
I know, I know! Don't you think I know??
But because I'm not sensible, I fell hard into his waiting arms. (a story I'm still figuring out how to tell).
For now, I'll just say that this relationship has sustained and grounded me through a period that would have otherwise been complete SH*T. (Remember when I said the last six months were the most bittersweet of my life? Now you know where the "sweet" comes from.)
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Now suddenly, however, I'm alone, because he's working all summer in a camp upstate New York and I have so much baggage around effing summer camps, but let's not even go there right now. Because it's IRRELEVANT, ok?
Comes a time when you're drifting, comes a time when you settle down...
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| Leaving Seattle |
That's because he was my home for the last six months. Not Mexico. He was in Mexico, which made it a warm safe place for me to be. A place where, for a while, I just relaxed and forgot about my identity crisis.
Who am I now if not a wife, a home owner, a soon-to-be adoptive parent?
Bring it on, summer. I can take you.
Now the identity crisis is back, thanks very much. Which isn't a bad thing. It is what it is. In fact, I'm sure it's HEALTHY for me to be ALONE for the SUMMER figuring out who the f*ck I am and where I belong.Meanwhile, I at least temporarily have the freedom (thank you, flexible job!) to jet around feeling uncomfortable in various places. So I don't have to be stuck in just one! So far this summer, I've been in two different countries, 3 different states and five difference cities, seeing friends and dogs and spending insane amounts of money on AirBBs.
Also, drinking way too much coffee, not exercising, crying less than I thought I would (but still enough), and looking out the windows of various modes of transportation at the ever-surprising, usually-beautiful U.S. countryside.
Speaking of which...I'm just about to get on another bus (aah, my comfort zone) to drift a little more.
*OK it's totally not undisclosed. All you have to do is look at my Instagram feed to know where I am.
