Moving out
Bright lights in the big city! (aka the annoying streetlamp outside my window)
Well, friends… I moved to D.C.! Sorry this newsletter is late; I’ve been awash in boxes and bags and shopping lists and a million to-dos and very very bad sleep hygiene. This is also probably going to be a somewhat jumbled newsletter, hopefully no typos but I can’t make promises, because… see previous sentence. But thankfully, past-me tossed a few semi-useful ideas into a draft, so we’ll make do.
I’ve been a complicated ball of emotions ever since I decided to move. The primary one, thankfully, has been excitement—I know my roommates, which eliminated the fear of moving with strangers; we found a miraculous gem of a house we all really love; the promise of warm weather and, frankly, no longer living with two people over the age of 60 has brought my Covid anxiety down quite a bit (I might actually… have a social life again? A concept). But there’s been sadness, too, and a gnawing sense that I just… wasn’t ready to do it, despite all evidence to the contrary.
The thing is, were it not for Covid, I would left my parents’ house a while ago—I mean, I had moved out before the pandemic struck. When I did, though, I remember feeling weirdly anxious about the whole thing, then almost relieved when I “had” to return home months later (I’d only signed a six-month lease, even though at the time I’d thought, “What’s the worst that could happen?” Ha ha ha). But moving back home only relieved some of that anxiety—in many ways, it exacerbated it. The more time I spent inside, the more I had to face the fact that my anxiety was not, in fact, just about Covid. In July of last year, on a post-vaccine high, I found myself fumbling to explain to my therapist why I’d barely fended off a panic attack on a flight to Utah—“I wasn’t actually worried about getting the virus,” I confessed. “I just suddenly had this feeling that I shouldn’t have left at all.”
And there was my big epiphany. My childhood home had always been a metaphorically safe space—familiar, steady, largely unchanging. Toss a pandemic into the mix, when home became literally the safest place to spend my time, and I started to think that maybe I just never would feel safe anywhere else.
I felt like I was carting around a big, shameful secret, because at times I couldn’t even remember who I’d been before the anxiety—I mean, it had always sort of been there, but not to this extent. The first summer I went to sleepaway camp, I waved my parents off without a second thought. In college, I’d spent a whole summer in New York City, rooming with strangers, hardly knowing a soul there, and I’d been so excited that any lingering nerves were promptly squashed upon my first glimpse of the skyline. And now, at 24 years old, I could hardly imagine imagine leaving my childhood bedroom. What had happened?
Well, a lot. Namely…. the pandemic. But also, growing up has steadily made me aware of all I had as a kid, and how little I appreciated it. Our cozy house. Our spacious yard. The forest and creek and wildflowers and bikes and books and board games and friends and homemade dinners and desserts and my parents, who faced the brunt of my volatile emotions as I’d navigated the churning seas of puberty and school pressures and untreated anxiety problems. To be back home as an adult felt like having a shot at a do-over—like I could really appreciate it all this time. I could be a little kid again, except this time really knowing how damn special it was. I didn’t want—or know how—to let go of that.
So, like I said… moving = mostly exciting.
Well, flash forward a bit. Last weekend, my dad and I came to the city to drop off some of my things, and on our way back to Virginia, we caught the most beautiful sunset—hazy pinks and oranges and dusky blue framing that iconic, monumental (ha) skyline—and I felt the hint of a lump in my throat.
I remembered all over again that that view had captured countless of my daydreams when I was a little girl. It makes me think of my mother and grandmother and The Washington Post at the kitchen table and elementary-school field trips, nose practically pressed to the school-bus window, in awe of the buildings and the history, thinking, We are in the most important city in the world. Pretty sure I only thought that because it was the first city I knew—the only city I really knew. No matter. I wanted to live there one day. Maybe I’d be a journalist. Maybe I’d work in the White House. I didn’t care; I just thought it was big and beautiful and a special place to be.
Well, here I am, in that very city, new house, new-ish roommates, new room looking a hot mess, thinking still about that little girl. I miss her, yes—I miss being that age, all big hopes and bigger daydreams, always someone else to take care of me. But it occurs to me that the best way to honor her now isn’t to try to make myself smaller, to try to do things over again—it’s to gently take her hand and pull her forward into the present, into that big fancy city she romanticized so much, and say, look, yes, we made it, we’re doing it, we’re going to be okay.
We’re going to be okay.
Mostly things I forgot to include last time:
Stephen Colbert’s brilliant response to Dua Lipa asking him about the intersection of his faith and comedy just about did me in. (Skip to 3:30 if you’re in a hurry.)
I can’t believe I haven’t told you all to watch Abbott Elementary yet! (I know you don’t watch anything unless I tell you to.) It’s so smart and timely and FUNNY. I never thought I’d see the day when a new network comedy actually made me laugh out loud, but here we are, and I am here for it.
I’m extremely enjoying the official Friday Night Lights rewatch podcast and I now want to watch that masterpiece of a show for the third time.
Pegah sent me this TikTok a while ago and I just— LOL
Also these Calico Critters TikToks are better than any soap opera I’ve ever seen. No notes.
SPRINGISALMOSTHEREIAMVERYVERYEXCITEDABOUTTHAT.
later taters,
Jayne <3
