When I last left you, I was waking up in my sister's house on the second day of self-induced job-and homelessness. And I was still feeling pretty good that morning. The sun woke me up, something that never happened in my first floor apartment. The chilly air caused me to shiver, a wonderful, post-summer feeling. I snuggled deeper into T's flannel sheet-covered bed with the knowledge I had all the time in the world. There wasn't even anyone around to make me lazy for not getting up and out of the house. But eventually, I did.
One of my major goals of this journey is to connect with loved ones. Since S & J were still gone, I called up B, a woman who was my girlhood best friend and someone I've managed to stay in touch with, though we haven't lived near each other in 18 years. B lives close to my sister, with her husband and daughter, expecting a baby boy at the end of the year. When we were teenagers, B and I spent a LOT of time together and I was devastated when my family moved to another state in the middle of my junior year. I've often thought that had we been emailing and IMing in 1990, I would have managed to stay closer friends with B, but that isn't how it worked out. No amount of phone calls and letters and twice a year visits can match the intimacy of seeing one another everyday, keeping up with the minutia of each other's lives. Still, we HAVE stayed in touch and B holds a large portion of my history in her memory, and that was enough of a reason to seek her out whenever I would come to town.
Many of those visits, however, were painful for me. B seemed to be having more fun in college than I was. Because she was. She seemed to date more often. Because she did. She got married before I ever had a chance to really fall in love. She bought a house and had a beautiful red-headed baby while I rented a crappy one-bedroom and took care of other people's children. And I resented her all these milestones and all that happiness. I never said I did. To anyone. But I'd have a hard time believing she couldn't feel my resentment. That's no longer the way I feel. I'm not sure exactly when it changed, when I changed, but I did. It had a lot to do with forgiving myself for not having what I thought I should have at certain points in my life. And being really, truly appreciative for where I was and what I was doing with that life. This Sunday visit wasn't the first resentment-free one we've had. But it was the first one during which I didn't stop to think about how I wasn't feeling bitter and jealous. I just enjoyed the sunshine and the breeze and the comfortable conversation from an adirondack chair in the beautiful garden behind B's lovely home as we watched her daughter play on the lawn.
Driving back to S's after the visit, I realized I would pass a Barnes & Noble. I hadn't shopped for anything in several months, besides groceries and my backpack. As I was shedding my possessions, I decided to go into a "no acquisitions" phase. Made sense AND seemed kinda noble-bonus! Of course making vodka and Trader Joe's mini peanut butter cups (groceries!)my only real expense probably wasn't a terrific idea. Anyway, back to the books. A wonderful friend and his wife (M &W) gave me a B&N gift certificate as a going away gift, so I felt justified in my need to purchase a copy of "Pride & Prejudice & Zombies", something I'd been wanting to read for months. As I got nearer the mall, however, I began to realize the expanse of time that lie in front of me and decided to save the book shopping for Monday. This was the first time it hit me that I had NOTHING to do.
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