nothing to wear

I've been thinking a lot about fashion and style. I suppose some would say that is not unusual for me, but I guess I should say, I've been thinking a lot about my personal style. 

Personal style is hard. It's one of those things that I'm always surprised when someone says "Oh hey, I love your style!" My inner response is something resembling: 1. Quick! Without looking down...what am I wearing? 2. I have a style? 3. Does this more resemble UVA, NYU, or Virginia Beach? 

In that order too.

I tend to think of my own style as more erratic. Thrift store motorcycle boots, navy blue chinos, striped shirt with exterior zipper. That's what I'm wearing today. Yesterday I wore my favorite black dress (Target) with a big black belt (Banana Republic) with leg warmers and those same thrift store boots. 

Sometimes I feel like I'm trying to hard to get it all right. To express the right thing--whatever that might be. 

My closet is a little weird. It's not totally predictable. It's not all one thing--prep, urban, boho, beachy. It's an odd blend of all of it. It's Gap and thrift, Anthro and Target. 

Perhaps one day I will have a more definitive style. Something where I can say-- "Why yes, I have perfected the art of the city's tomboy style..."

But seriously, I doubt it. For at least right now I'm way too busy trying out different styles the same way I'm trying out different lives. Twenty something style for me is crazy and different and a mix. It's where I go to be someone different every day...

image. 

PS--Interested in my fashion inspiration? Check out my who/her board on pinterest!

the one who turned around

Monk by the Sea, Caspar David Fredrich

Usually I am not the one who is consistent. I’m not the one who comes back, who turns around, who stays. I leave. People always leave, right?

I used to blame it all on being a military brat. I didn’t really stay somewhere long enough to grow roots. We moved. We moved often.

But then, somewhere, I became the one who moved. I moved colleges, I moved back home after graduation, I moved to Mali, I moved to Michigan. Those were all my choices. It’s been three years since college and I’ve had 5 addresses. (FYI- That’s enough of a change that I couldn’t get a Target Red Card until my check book address and my driver’s license matched.)

Yet, with all that change, here I am back at the same place I was last year. I am the dubious “returner.” The one who has done this before, the one who knows where the mail room is, and can answer questions about Bud’s hours.

It’s a whole new world.

I have no idea what to do with this. Seriously. Nothing. This isn’t who I am. I’m the new girl. That is what I can always bank on, that’s why I have friends on both coasts, and over a dozen countries.

It’s an interesting thing to have people around you who know your stories. Who can anticipate what drives you crazy, know when to leave you alone because your favorite TV show is on, and who will text you as soon as they find out when grilled cheese day is (I LOVE grilled cheese day).

I have great friends. Friends who will pick up the phone when I call after being MIA for months, friends who will house me when I come to visit, who will skype with me at weird hours due to the time difference, who send me postcards and text messages. I have some amazing people.

Still, there is something about the people you live and work with. The dinners, the dance parties, the Target trips, the long conversations about life over coffee and wine.

My Mom used to tell me--when I would get all huffy about being the new kid--that parents give their children two things: roots or wings, and just like everything else, whatever you’ve been given, you always want the other.

I was given wings. I have no fear to be far away. I trust the loyalty and love of the people I let close to me. I understand the meaning of being globally minded. I don’t live in a bubble.

Two, three, five years anywhere probably won’t give me roots. But no matter what, just this once, I’m the one standing still. And it feels weird, uncharted, and unpredictable.

PS--This is one of my favorite pieces of non-modern art. Something about the colors, the proportions...I don't know...it's like you could gaze at the unmoving sea forever.

1am

I’m sitting here and the loudest thing is the ticking of this super cheap clock i have sitting next to my bed. I thought it would help me in my morning routine, but really it just fills the part of my brain that says “adults have clocks. college students use their cell phones.” so there it sits.

it’s past 1am. I’m never up this late. But I have this clay mask on that I’m letting sit and hoping that when i was it off it will take all my zits and acne and craziness that has taken over away with it. i never had this issue as a teen. but i guess it’s still a lot to ask of a clay mask.

what i’m really doing up is listening to the wind dance amongst the building making that whooshing noise like weather does in cities trapped between buildings and lives. that’s what living on the bottom floor in a house in the middle of campus does. it puts you in a position to be the center of it all. and the wind keeps coming, in waves like the ocean, in calm consistencies, in invisible and underestimated strength.

and i think of you.

i think of the time we spent together, of what it meant then and why sometimes it means everything and sometimes i wish it meant nothing because that would make the missing of you lessen. i think about how much you would have loved it here. how you’d be the person i’d tell this to instead of an idea in my head.

but the best thing about this is that it is only a thought. it leaves almost as quickly as it comes and i get pulled back into my very present reality.

someone laughs at a youtube video.

a door shuts.

my face mask tightens.

i pick at my nail polish.

and then the wind howls.

i pull back my curtain to see it. as if wind was something to watch instead of hear.

next i’m going to get up. ponder shutting my computer. wash my face. lay down under the covers of my bed and be enveloped in the precious moment that sleep comes.

and in the meantime i wait for the wind.

LOL

#truth

This is so real. 

Thanks to Madeline for sharing the love. 

this is now

don't you just love flowers? and yes, that is a blue mason jar. #hipster

 

this is my backyard. seriously. interlochen is nestled between two lakes and this is one. plus an instagram filter. :)

sometimes the days are long and the desk shifts longer and you forgot to remember the magic. you forget the good and the reasons you stayed. you forget how much you really do love waking up to the french horn and opera and that the gossip of a 17 year old deserves as much attention as npr. sometimes you forget and the jelly sticking to your favorite pair of jeans (because you were rushing and eating on the go) seems like too high a price to pay and the next thing stopping you from 8 blissful hours of uninterrupted sleep will seriously not be tolerated. 

and then a gchat pops up asking if you want to run away and the girl down the hall gleefully says the cute boy in chemistry asked her to ice cream and the idea of closing down a residence hall and tucking 80 people to bed with some of the kindest, wisest people seems like a gift. and then nothing matters but the cool air, the smile on the face of the person next to you and the brightness of the Michigan sky at night. 

as the breeze comes in and you finally lay down at night, the magic remains and tomorrow begs to be created. 

this summer

While many things shifted this summer, the one thing that stayed in place was my plan to travel throughout the US to visit friends and have some very cool reunions.

I feel very grateful to have such amazing friends. People who know me and seem to like me anyway. And it was amazing to meet up with such a variety of friends--friends from college, from Peace Corps, new friends, old friends, Michigan friends. I got to meet families and significant others and drink so much coffee. I realized how important it was to have these people from different stages in my life and how together they are some of the best people.

Unfortunately my personal computer was stolen halfway through this trip and I am missing some fabulous pictures from Charlottesville and New York. But here is a little glimpse of what happened next...

In Idaho there is a thing that looks like an Idaho potato but is ACTUALLY ice cream. Whoa. 

The Portland Courthouse 

MK <3

Me eating a famous VooDoo doughnut

Porlandia, OR

#themarys

San Francisco, CA (the Goodfella reunion)

at the vineyards 

marcy mouse

Nobb Hill, San Francisco 

The Ferry Building

The Bay Bridge 

hiatus

9.2.13

As it was planned:

If everything had gone according to plan my summer would have consisted of me getting to travel for a while engaging my twenty-something idleness in doing way too much in every city I visited with people I love. I would have spent half the summer living out of two carry-ons, stuck my feet in both oceans and came back to Indiana exhausted and ready to dive into all things graduate school. I would have filled out all the paperwork and tired my mother by reading her sections of my development books totally fascinated by everything there was to learn in the world. We would have ordered matching sweatshirts and taken photos. I would have emptied my savings account and been happy as a clam. And right at this moment I would be prepping for the beginning of the school year nervous and excited and learning way too much about Scotch.

Because that was the plan. And I can count on one hand the amount of times I have gone against the plan.

You see, I love a plan. I do. I love to schedule my time and cross things off lists. I like to sit back and imagine my future, even if that future is five minutes from now. I daydream, I overthink, I zone out with images of what it will all be like. (There should so be a support group for this type of Type-A.)

As I am sure you have caught onto, the plan imploded.

I wish I could say there was a good reason. Something so huge that stopped me from going to school and taking that leap. Maybe something tragic happened, or I decided to become a nun or something way more impressive.

But atlas, that is not it.

The truth of the matter is, well, even I don’t understand it. One moment I was happy and the next moment I couldn’t shake the dread and fear that this was a mistake. The money. The distance. The uncertainty. It couldn’t happen. It wasn’t going to happen. And there I was, crying, sitting on the curb looking into a future I couldn’t predict.

Life is a wonderful thing because if you do it anywhere in the ballfield of ok there will be a group of people who seem to be grateful for your existence even when you feel like the biggest terd this side of the ocean. And that’s what happened. I called my boss from Michigan and asked for my job back. When, with nothing but the knowledge that something had gone amiss, she answered how happy she would be for my return, I wept some more as I realized that not only does she have a knack for teens, but also for the weirdness of the twenty-something.

When something doesn’t happen the way you anticipate it feels as though the whole world is watching and judging. But I really need to stop believing anyone cares about me as much as I think they do because even as my return to Michigan hit the airwaves one calls Facebook it certainly didn’t hit with anything other than a whimper. Of course the people I worked with before and who were also returning were happy for me and we bantered about how cool we were going to be, but the infamous high school Facebook friend I’m still trying to impress has better things to do than follow me.

To make a long story even longer, I’m back in Michigan. I’m back at this school. I’ve returned which in and of itself is interesting. In the three years since I’ve graduated from college I’ve returned to nothing. My parents moved three times. I’ve had three different jobs. So even just in the simple act as stepping foot on this space again, it feels right, and good.

My dear friend Marcy is still flying to Scotland on Wednesday and I am so happy for her.

But this year, this time, well this is for a future I haven’t planned, one that’s not scripted or perfect, one that may not be impressive or glamorous, but it’s the one that fits. And here I am. Just twenty-five year old me. Figuring it all out, one beautiful and messy step at a time.

Stick around. I can always promise interesting.