long overdue

(I know.)

I've been trying to write for months. Really, since I left Louisiana. Really.

Writers blahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh block.

But other things too. Moving from Louisiana, starting a new job, planning and having a wedding. I was really busy. Not to mention the many adventures I've had since then: I spent a week at the beach in New Jersey before I started working; I went to Ghost Ranch in New Mexico for the YAV transition retreat (I'll get back to that) (assuming I actually finish writing this); back and forth and back and forth and back and forth to Toms River for aforementioned wedding (which was awesome); the wedding itself (I may have mentioned, it was really awesome); a trip to Kansas City a week later for a work-related conference (which was chilly but very good); extra visits to NJ before, during, and after Thanksgiving to be with our beloved Bill; oh, the holidays and all of the busy-ness that accompanies; and I went to Peru, and I got some sleep once in a while, and we unpacked our apartment and learned how to care for goats and chickens and bought plane tickets for a honeymoon that isn't for seven more months and I'm going to Haiti in a week and a half...

Really.

These things have all been beautiful, and I owe everyone a lot of stories, but the truth is I had a very difficult time transitioning from life in Louisiana to life in Virginia. Mike has been a great, no, phenomenal companion and support. I think he would agree, it was not easy to figure out how to coexist in the same state again, much less the same household, but we're finding a lot of success because living across the country for the better part of two years made us really, really, really strong communicators, and also Mike is just awesome. But settling into our new lives was not really so much the challenge.

Really.

The challenge was hard for me to put my finger on. Why on earth was I so sad about all of the amazing and beautiful things happening in my life? A job that I love in a place that I adore, surrounded by friends and not too far from family, so many great travels and opportunities... and yet, I was trapped in some kind of foggy dimension in which fake-it-till-you-make-it wasn't really making it.

Really.

I was spending all, and I mean ALL of my energy in September getting out of bed in the morning and doing my job as best I could. That was about it. I wasn't settling into my apartment, I wasn't exploring my neighborhood, I wasn't planning my wedding, I wasn't sharing my stories of the success and joy I'd had as the wetlands YAV despite the many bumps and challenges along the way. I wasn't cleaning either, which was probably a healthy change of pace from the crippling concern over germs and clutter I'd developed over the course of my year in service. But I wasn't doing anything, and I wasn't really interested in thinking about considering doing anything any time soon, either. Outside of work, I was mostly interested in staring into space and going back to bed.

So I got out of the habit of writing, even though writing has always been a way for me to reflect and process what's going on in the world around me. Well, that, and I wasn't really going on any adventures except for my job, and I was trying to protect that from the rest of the whirlwind I was feeling at the time (and not a good whirlwind, either).

But a lot of things helped shift the tide. The Young Adult Volunteer program has a great retreat at Ghost Ranch (see, I just had to keep writing, I knew it'd come up again) to help process the transition. I spent some time with a counselor there, and just her acknowledgement that the struggle was real was helpful. I had a wedding that we still needed to do most of the planning for, and thankfully I had an amazing support system to help pull it off (not to mention a band that didn't really require any preparation to make that party infreakincredible)-- but that was a happy project to be distracted by.

When I started to truly acknowledge how blue I was really feeling, it was easier for me to notice the many little things that helped carry me through, little things people said or did, little snippets of beauty in each day, how powerfully zen watching my chickens makes me feel, how much I missed writing but didn't know what to say or if I should say or who cares if I say, some really lovely lattes as a reward for walking a few blocks to pick up our glorious CSA, and slowly giving far less a care about run on sentences and oversleeping and forgetting appointments and worrying that I'd find the write words again or that I actually needed to explain this, and it's ok to miss Louisiana every day, and I'm settling settling in...

and here we are. Here I am. And I have a lot of really incredibly beautiful stories to catch you up on. Really.