My apartment is finally to the point that I’m not walking around piles of boxes. The counters aren’t covered in stacks of mementos. All my art is hung on the walls. But I’m still a little out of sorts. Don’t get me wrong – things are better than they were one or two weeks ago. When I first got here, I didn’t predict how much the lack of structure would unnerve me. For the first time since I was sixteen,…
I made it to Riverside. Even though I had a temper tantrum somewhere in Arizona, the journey went really well. No blown tires. No giant mishaps. No overheated engines. Couldn’t ask for better. Moving with the dogs though, is a bit of an adventure. See, my dogs reflect the two opposing sides of my personality. Eliot is the wounded poet. He has a lot of feelings. As a deeply emotional dog who hates change, the hardest part of moving for him…
If it seems like all I’ve been talking about on the blog lately is moving, that’s because all I’ve been doing in real life is moving. Well, that and going out with my friends as much as possible which makes for interesting-but-not-exactly-for-this-blog content. While Saturday I spent the entire day hungover and unable to move resting, yesterday I was as productive as can be trying to pack up the last bits of my house. It made me think of some…
Earlier this week, I posted a kind of gloom & doom post outlining my anxieties about my upcoming move. As I hope you knew, those aren’t my only feelings. Today I’ll share a much happier posts – the things I’m stoked about! I Get to Focus on Writing More Than Anything Else. Writing has always been important to me, but it’s never been allowed to be the star of my life. Even in undergrad, creative writing was my minor so…
Alternate titles to this post include: Say Hello to Lauren’s Anxiety! Holding Readers Captive While I Panic About My Life Choices Join Me on a Compelling Journey of Pre-Move Jitters Mostly, I’m excited to quit my job, start school and move halfway across the country on my own… mostly. Still, this is a huge life change that’s happening in a month and a half. Though I’ve done huge moves before (NC to MA, MA to TX), I always had Tim with…
When telling friends and family that I was moving to southern California for school, people’s first question was often what I was going to do with my horse. To me, Simon has been one of the easier obstacles. Once I get settled, I’ll look for a barn in CA and ship him in. Though there are still a lot of details to work out for Simon, I was more concerned with finding housing for me and the dogs than I…
I’ve always been someone who tries to seek out safety. If there’s an option between a wild choice and a safe one, I take the safe one. It’s something I’ve written about before. The relatively safe choices of my past have given me a lot in life. I’ve worked some really interesting jobs in the tech world, and learned a ton of skills I wasn’t introduced to in school. The financial stability my career provided me allowed me to do…
One time my super cool California friend took me to La Jolle Cove near San Diego, and I was surrounded by sea lions and harbor seals. This trip was made even more fantastic by three things: I listened to a This American Life episode years ago all about the cove and the battle between animal activists and beach patrons. It’s really interesting, and you can listen here. You can get close enough to touch the animals. Of course I don’t…