City Preferences, Country Problems
Enjoying a moment in the sun in Coeur D'Alene, and coming to terms with my painful teen years here.
The weather was warm, sunny, inviting. That was the norm as I knew it back in LA but here…I’ve been waiting to say any of those adjectives for about eight months.
I threw on a dress that hasn’t seen sunlight or wrapped itself around my skin for years. Grabbed the book I’m reading, Happy Money (more on how I’m reprogramming my relationship to money and wealth in posts to come), and walked to a nearby bar…cafe…lounge…however they were defining the little hole-in-the-wall place downtown.
A place with a table on the sidewalk. Somewhere I could peek over the top of my book pages to people watch. A place I could order something with champagne in it - and that I did. Somewhere with a seat for me that felt warm, sunny, and inviting.
Across the street flowers blooming hung over an English themed pub. Above that, windows into lofts that, had I known they existed, I would have fought tooth and nail to move into. I can’t even say with confidence now that they are livable lofts, or just offices.
Reminding me of a second-floor place in a city. The kind of city I would have been in right now, had my life not been turned completely upside down by my childhood sweetheart. The kind of loft I’d be living in perhaps this very moment, had he not swept me off my feet a second time, and given me the courage to face this place again…
Growing up in this part of the country wasn’t easy for me.
Winters are unforgiving, and so were my peers. I was the odd bird out, always. Perpetually overdressed, keen on the decidedly not-cool, two steps behind whatever was happening in the social scene, trend report, and popularity contest. I didn’t fit in. I left 17 years ago and I still don’t feel like the past has left here. Like the whole corner of the country remembers me as the gangly girl with braces and good grades and her nose in a book.
I don’t fit - or blend - in any better now. But I am no longer a teenager. I can’t live in the emotions of that past. I’ve secured myself to my own bearings; my likes, my talents, my accomplishments. I don’t have the need to fit in or belong here, in fact in ways I feel prideful that I don’t. But it doesn’t always feel safe to stick out.
I suppose a part of me came back to reconcile what had happened in those tumultuous teen years. To reclaim my power and freedom in a place that wanted me to change. To prove that I didn’t conform, and there’s no stopping me now.
When Jake and I fell in love and it became obvious that the only way to stay together was for me to move home since he works on a gat damned mountain and I work remotely,
I told myself: this must be part of the journey.
This must be the dark cave I need to enter, in order to conquer what I need to, learn what I must, and become who I’m meant to be.
So I packed my bags and all my furniture and drove north.
But I didn’t just bring this pretty dress and my heavenly king-size mattress (that I will never, ever part from.) I brought everything I’d learned from living in Seattle, LA, New York, London. I brought all my fancy ways, my love of a handcrafted, top-shelf cocktail. My snobbery for a well plated meal. My love of oysters, high heels, art galleries, jazz.
So now, instead of only healing those old wounds, I’m making my mark on this corner of the world. Overdressed, and underwhelmed. There’s of course nothing to be scared of here…Maybe it’s this place that should be a little scared of me?
Maybe the town should be the one quivering as we dig up the memories? Maybe it’s the one with something to prove? To apologize for? To see the reckoning?
There are days (on end) when the gloomy weather and lack of a major museum to wander endlessly through do get me down. On those days, I reach for cozy clothes and flat shoes. Until a certain depression finds me because beyond comfort, I’m conforming. It’s a slippery slope to just go with the status quo and next thing I know, I haven’t worn mascara in a week.
But when the some comes out, like today, I remember who I am.
A girl who is ‘too much’, and therefore so much more than enough.
A girl who dresses up for life.
A girl who makes an occasion of even the smallest act, because that’s how I celebrate being alive.
A girl who fought to be here. And who won’t be shamed into changing or taming herself for anyone, or anywhere, ever again.