What to say? I am sitting indoors, away from the thick clumps of air outside, and wondering about how time can go by so fast, and yet, sometimes lay out in front of you like the endless highway across the abandoned state of Nevada. Lately I have not felt as though life is moving quite as I want it to. This isn't to say it's moving slowly, because frankly, with the way work pummels me I can barely take a breath. No.....it is something more. I wonder how long I can stay in Austin and still love it the way I am certain it deserves. The weather, surely, is enough to break even the most cushioned of spirits right now, but it's more than that. There is no escape here, from the city that is. Everywhere I go there is concrete, or if I do escape it, I know that I am in a patch of trees that only tease me momentarily before yet another stretch of gray is revealed.
I feel as though all the people here are the same, and I grow antsy. I want something very very different. I want to get some epic tropical disease again and wonder, will I need a blood transfusion on a dirty Thai hospital bed? OK, maybe I don't want that exactly, but I do feel as though things are mundane. During the week, I work 12 hour days and come home and feel very similar to one of those large manatees who lives in one of the most beautiful oceans but can barely move fast enough to catch a floating piece of seaweed. Then, Wednesdays come and I am more exhausted than ever and I force myself to get into the car and make my way to kickball and GASP, socialize with people other than those in education! Finally, Friday sneaks up with a spurt of euphoric confetti and I am zonked by midnight from the joy of it all. It isn't really until Sunday that I have chiseled away the plaque from the rest of the week and start remembering that I even have a creative side that exists beyond lesson planning and putting up red and white polka dot border. I'm not even married and this is my life. I am single and still I find it hard to have time with myself. How is that even possible?
A year has gone by, and then some. This time last year, H and I were biking downtown to try and catch a few notes from the ACL music festival. I was still not hired and egregiously broke, and she was exhausted from life. Now, I have a great job that I love and we have 'game night' at our house and make chili and cookies. Naturally, if this weren't happening I would be complaining about that, too.....but I really do wonder how long will my life in Austin last? Will I meet someone who doesn't want to tie me down or 'figure me out' or think I'm interesting without really wanting to make me less interesting over time? Will someone every just rejoice in every bit of who I am the way I see it done in theaters? Will I ever stop loving Jane Austen and all the period pieces from a time where women were equally besotted and oppressed by gentlemen? And I digress yet again with Victorian sentiments.......
I just don't understand how to think about time. Am I meant to not think about next year? How can I not, when I may have to sign a legal document committing myself to set frame of days by April? Is Austin really somewhere I can be for much longer, or will I start to hate it, little by little, for not having seasons, not having an ocean, mountains, open space for me to run in? I just want to move to Italy, really, or return to my dear Praha, where the city is old and vibrant and the apartments are small only because dreams are bigger than property. But, you can escape to the hillside, the most wondrous hillside where pear trees explode in March, and you can weep at the lines of rock that have erected a magnificent place of worship. Why do I miss these things so much? Why does everyone else love Austin so ferociously when I feel mostly apathy? I wonder if I am deeply, deeply ungrateful, or if I am just being an insubordinate resident, a petulant child that doesn't want to like something that everyone else likes. How do you know when you are meant to be somewhere?
I often wonder if I have just been gone from home for too damned long. If I need to just get back there, get back home before I tear down every city in America with my longing for Chico. There is no beauty like that of my dearest orchards, my Bidwell Park, and the way the Pacific sighs int he evenings. How can I live anywhere that doesn't allow me to spend a Saturday gazing upon John Muir's most trusted friend, the giant Redwood?
But of course, so many questions, too many really, for a lazy, humid Sunday in a city that is jammed pack full of hipsters and celebs. So I will get back to my 'real' writing now, and stop telling you all the ways life astounds me, for I fear you would have to sit with me for some time before my mouth stopped moving.
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