Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Did You Drink Water Today?

Some mornings you just know that it’s going to be a weird day.
For example, last week, Carly and I witnessed not only a teenager literally climbing the wall to get to the train (when the stairs were right there, dude) but also a man shoplift a Starbucks cackling wildly while a cop chased him into the street. That was a weird day. Weird vibes at work, complicated cases, someone laying on the bell in the elevator for two minutes straight. It was just weird.
Today was one of those weird days.
For starters, the bus was late. The bus is late often. If we take the same bus, we typically have the same bus driver. He’s a really sweet guy. Honestly. But he really enjoys talking to people, which can sometimes drag out the time it takes for the bus to arrive, and he’s almost always late. But today it was absurd. Five minutes is okay. Ten minutes? My legs are tired.
While waiting for the bus another one of our roommates arrived, and when you see your roommates after you said goodbye to the entire house fifteen minutes ago, that’s just weird. It’s like when you say bye to someone and then end up walking the same way. (Which I actually did this weekend, now that I’m thinking about it, and it was awful.) So she rode the bus with us for a bit, and then got off the bus and walked the same direction the bus was going, so we saw her for another like, five minutes. Just walking along as we drove. (Again, awkward.)
Finally we made it to the train station though and Carly needed to reload her Clipper card (again) (she does this a lot) (run out of card money) (she only reloads it like ten dollars) (which is like a day of travel) so I waited for her through the gate.
So the way our station works is that there are two levels. There’s the upper level, where you enter the station. Then there’s a middle level, which I didn’t realize existed until today, and then there’s a lower level. The lower level takes trains to San Francisco. The middle level is like, the returning train and heads east. I never realized this was how it worked. I swear to God. I’ve been trying to figure out for WEEKS how I only had to go up one small flight of stairs when I came home from work instead of the mountain of stairs I have to go down to get to work.
Anyway, as we were taking the long stretch down to the bottom level to catch the train, we passed the middle platform that had a blinking sign that said SFO AIRPORT / SAN FRANCISCO. Carly and I sprinted down the rest of the stairs and then found an escalator that went up and wound up all the way on the top floor again, and then we scrambled to find the middle platform because, like, seriously, I just never realized it existed.
There was even a big sign that said “ALL SAN FRANCISCO BOUND TRAINS BOARD LOWER LEVEL” and yet, the sign was blinking with a SF train, so like. Whatever. I literally felt like I was in an alternate universe. It was bizarre.
There were delays on the train too, so Late Bus + Late Train = Jenn Gets To Work Fifteen Minutes Late. Which was fine.
(We later found out that there were weird train things going on because the police needed to get a dog off of the tracks?! Okay. The dog was fine. They took him to a shelter. He didn’t have tags. I want to adopt him.)
Moving along, I just kind of leaned into the morning. I had a client that took up most of the morning, but while we were meeting everyone’s phone went off.
“It’s an Amber Alert,” my client said. I pulled out my phone. It was not an Amber Alert.
Emergency Alert
High temps expected Check on neighbors Drink water Cooling and heat safety info at sfdph.org
...Okay.
There was a birthday celebration at lunch time that me and my co-worker walked in late on (not realizing it had started) and caught the very tail end of the birthday song by walking into a room where everyone was facing the door? That was weird. I also had apple pie, which is weird. Pies are weird. Why did I take a piece of that.
Remembering that Carly needed to reload her Clipper card, I remembered I needed to reload mine as well.
LITERALLY TEN MINUTES AFTER I DEPOSITED MONEY ONTO MY CARD, I get a phone call from HR at work saying that they’re going to load my card for me, which is great! Only I have to deregister my card from my name so the can load it themselves from their account. The only problem is that I can’t deregister my card with a pending transaction. But also, did I need to load my card? If work? Was going to load it? For me? Moments later?
And now, we’ve reached the end of the day, where I got on the elevator with a client who was still in the lobby.
This man insisted that I had spoken with him before (which maybe I had! I see a lot of people so I’m not entirely sure) and was very apologetic that he had not been back. He was now working with the legal department, so clearly our rental assistance side of the office hadn’t been able to help, and he was upset. Not at my work, though, at his life.
This man, whose name I wasn’t even sure of, showed me an email that a partner of his had sent to him. He got quickly emotional about how he didn’t know where he stood with this person and how he just wanted direct communication from them. I’d read the email wrong and kept referring to the partner as a she and he eventually stopped me and said, “I have to live my truth, it’s actually a he.”
Standing literally one step outside of my building, I apologized for my own assumptions. This man started talking about how he’s bisexual, how he’s trying to find himself, how all he wants is this other man to just talk to him. I stood there for at least ten minutes listening to him talk, nodding my head, saying I can’t make these decisions for you, you need to reach out on your own.
He walked with me down the sidewalk toward the train and I very easily could’ve put my headphones in and tuned him out, or apologized and hurried away. Briefly, I thought about taking a longer route to get to the train so I could just leave. But like--fuck.
Sometimes people just need to be listened to.
I only got the guy’s first name, and it wasn’t until the end when we parted way, and I mean--whatever. Maybe the guy was crazy. Maybe he’s got some mental stuff going on. Maybe life hasn’t been the kindest to him. Whatever. He was kind and he was sad and it didn’t matter that my work day was over, he needed to be listened to.
I feel like people these days, including myself, are really bad at just fucking listening to people. We have short attention spans and we couldn’t care less about the problems of others and it’s easy enough to nod and act like you’re listening when you’re not. But the world is in shambles. The news is exhausting and there are so many people suffering from disasters and from policy and from hatred and from fear and all I could do today, was take one of those people who was hurting, and make it just a little easier.
At the beginning of the conversation, he was nearly in tears. By the end he was smiling. And it wasn’t because I’d given him some great advice or told him that everything was going to work out or sparked some flame of hope within him. I literally. Just. Listened.
I’m home now and I’m still thinking about that man, hoping (dare I say praying?) that he has the strength to reach out to his partner, hoping that things work out for him, hoping that things actually are okay. And while I might never know where he ends up or how things change (or don’t change) for him, I gave him what I could in that moment.
So listen to your local rambling man in a cowboy hat who is also wearing a pair of jeans with an insane amount of zippers on it. You never know what kind of difference you’re making for them in this weird, hectic world.

An Addendum (9/29/17) - Many people have reached out to me in many different ways, very worried and concerned about me having a conversation with this random man. I'd like to say thank you for the concern! But I also want to stress that never, at any point in time, did I feel unsafe or uneasy.

I was just a step outside of my office building, multiple co-workers passed me and asked if I was okay, and I never was worried that bad things were going to happen. If I had, I had many options of where to go to get away. There was no possibility for me to be cornered in the situation that I was in whatsoever. Please, never put yourself in a situation where you feel unsafe or uncomfortable. Get out of there, fam. Keep yourself safe.

When I encouraged people to listen to others, I may have listed the "local rambling man" as my example, but that's not exactly what I meant.

I mostly meant listen to each other. Your friends and your family, your roommates. Not everyone is going to stop you outside and dump their entire life story on you, but that doesn't mean they don't have something they want to share or get off of their chest.

When I said listen, I meant to yourself. Keep note of the stories you want to share and the feelings you want to embrace and find someone who is willing to sit down and be that ear for you.

In a world that is harder and harder every day, just be there for each other, and give grace when you can.
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Sunday, September 24, 2017

An Apple a Day

No one actually tells you how much worse it is to be sick as an adult.
Being sick in college, it’s not really a big deal. You can bundle up and sit in an hour long class before returning to your room. It’s okay if your brain is muddled because you just need the attendance points, you rarely have to participate if you don’t want to. Even with multiple classes a day, it’s not like you really have stuff to do. And being sick at camp, that just isn’t allowed. You push through your colds and maybe let your co-counselor shoulder a little more of the conversation than if you were at 100%. You drink Emergen-C and take Benadryl in the nurse's cabin (shout out to Space Junk always) and then you’re fine in a few days.
Being sick as an adult, though? No fucking way. Pass. Hard pass. Pass forever.
I’m currently sick. I’ve been sick since maybe Thursday, so it’s been a few days, and it’s not even like, a bad sickness. My throat’s a little scratchy. My nose is a little clogged. I’ve been way sicker than this before and still functioned. And yet, this is one of the worst colds I’ve ever had simply because unlike all the other times in my life when I was sick, I have to continue being a real person while I battle this cold.
The commute home, that 45 minutes to an hour, becomes exhausting. Every interaction with someone is like one of those computer games where you have 50 different options to chose from and only 30 seconds to decide or it picks for you and your brain is struggling to catch up.
I’m. So. Tired.
The thing about being at work is that, depending on the day, we’re not actively busy. If I had a lot of things to do all the time, I’d be able to find that steady constant to keep me going. But I like to think I’m an efficient worker, so most of the things that I could be doing I already have done. So unless someone comes into the office, I don’t have anything to do. Being sick, with nothing to do, is the worst. It’s the worst.
Friday was one of those slow days, where the office was so quiet that I was convinced no one had opened the door downstairs to let people in. My brain felt like damp sponges, but the kind of damp where someone had tried to wet them and failed so parts of the sponge were soaking and the other half were dry and stiff, and I was tired. Coffee did little to wake me up.
My cubicle is kind of off to the side so I walked over to the area where all my co-workers were gathered, talking and laughing, and plopped onto a chair.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m sick.”
“Oh, hell no.” Virginia dove into her desk and pulled out a literal face mask, the kind that people wore when swine flu was going around in 2009, and handed it to me. “Wear that. You can’t get us sick.”
It wasn’t like they were actually going to kick me out of the huddle if I didn’t wear the mask, but I pulled it on anyway because I didn’t want to spread germs. They all asked if I’d been taking care of myself and taking medicine (which I have but like, sleep medicine that makes it so I can pass out even though I can’t breathe) and let me slump over onto their desks as I tried to wake myself up.
“Go home,” they said at 11 am. I kept wrinkling my nose in response.
Just because I was sick didn’t mean I was going to abandon them. Our side of the office is small, and afternoons typically were busier, and I wanted to prove that I could show up. I felt bad because I’d been leaving early all week (by like, half an hour, but everyone insisted I leave if I didn’t have work to do--which I didn’t!) and had told myself I’d stay all day Friday regardless.
I probably should’ve gone home. The sponges in my brain shifted and thinking was hard. I sent a half-finished email to an attorney which could’ve been bad if she hadn’t emailed me back for clarification right away.
“Go home,” they said at 3:50 pm. I went home.
It was my turn to cook dinner but by the time I got home I let all my housemates know I was going to sleep before waking up to cook dinner. Thankfully Danielle offered to cook instead of me (so I would cook another day instead) so I passed out without worrying about waking up, sleeping for three hours straight.
I woke up, ate some dinner, and essentially went back to bed before sleeping about 10+ hours.
Again, I must stress that this cold is absolutely nothing compared to previous colds I’ve had in my life. And still, because of all the responsibilities I have, it feels ten billion times worse.
I’ve been taking some medicine and Carly gave me a packet of Emergen-C that I’m going to drink at some point today and later, after having coffee with my community mentor, I’m going to stop into Walgreens for some more meds so that hopefully I can be at least up to 90% for work tomorrow.
I should really invest in more tissues.
--
It’s that time again!
Jenn Tries New Food
I want to preface this section by saying that one of my housemates made mac and cheese for us this week, and it was literally so good, and I was so happy and relieved that I didn’t have to shovel some unknown food into my mouth because mac and cheese. Amen, Hallelujah, praise the Lord.
Anyway, here we go.
  • Eggplant Rollatini
    • Working title of this before I knew what it was called was “eggplant thing with cheese”
    • I was really nervous about this because I know nothing about eggplants but surprise! It was delicious!!!!
    • It was so cheesy and excellent, there was cheese all over it and cheese inside and oh man, do I love cheese or what
    • The eggplant (at least I’m guessing that’s the eggplant) made it sort of sweet as well? A strange array of tastes but delicious nonetheless
    • I WILL ADMIT, however, that it is Not Good to take this item to work for leftovers the next day. It’s not the same. Not at all. In fact, it’s so creepy and goopy and weird, and leaves you questioning all of your life choices ever.
  • French Onion Soup
    • You must first know a few things about this assessment though: Soup Is So Creepy. I like, hate soup. All soups. On principle. They’re WEIRD. They’re like, liquid food!! What the heck!
    • Another thing you must know: onions are WEIRD. They’re in everything? Since when????? Why are they like that?
    • However, I must admit, this was pretty good. It had a warm layer of cheese on the top and there was mushy bread in it and we all know I love cheese and bread. I would probably have eaten more if I wasn’t sick. Being sick and eating this specific soup just was not a great combo. Everything looked a little like slugs. It was pretty flavorful though, which was nice.
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Things That Aren’t Important Enough For Their Own Blog Post
  • Happy Bisexual Awareness Week!
I feel like this is misleading because Bisexual Awareness definitely is important enough for it’s own blogpost but I’ve posted heavily on Facebook about that. We went to Pride a couple of weekends ago (last weekend? I have no concept of time) and it was amazing and such a good space to be in.

Being bisexual in today’s society is really weird, because while I personally surround myself with people who see bisexuality as valid and real and etc etc etc, so many people out in the rest of the world… don’t? And that’s bizarre to me, to think that I’ve gone through all of these weird layers of self-discovery and finally found a piece of my identity only to have people tell me it’s not a real and valid identity. So, like, I get I can be kind of annoying about being bisexual at times but also--fuck it. I’m proud of who I am and it’s taken me a long time to not be afraid to say that.

Like, I remember when I first told my sister about it and I was so terrified that she was going to think I was weird and crazy. And like, she might have? But she called me on the phone and was like “yeah that’s totally fine you do you” which was super reassuring. (She, along with many people I know, still make those like “half lesbian” jokes which aren’t? Ok? Because I’m not a lesbian? But we keep moving forward anyway.)

So--mini post I guess! Bisexuality is real and valid and continues to be the biggest section of the LGBT+ community despite being treated like we don’t exist.
Support your local bisexual!
  • Spirituality Night and Making Pizzas!
Once a month we have something called spirituality night where we meet with this pastor human named Anders and talk about our feelings. We didn’t get super into our feelings this past week but I know I’m going to eventually have to talk about The Things That Have Led Me On The Path That I’m On and --hoo, boy. Guess who’s not excited for that!
Still, this past week we made pizza which was cool, and he has a dog that’s the sweetest ever, so maybe by the time it’s my turn to dump my life story onto everyone’s laps I’ll be ready.
  • Art Auction Time!
Last week (? Again, I’m losing my concept on time) one of my co-workers had this art auction for the other place he works for (Coalition on Homelessness!) and he volunteered me and my house to sign up for it. The art everywhere was absolutely beautiful and the energy was so good and it was one of those nights that just made me really happy and at peace to be in San Francisco doing my thing.

There was free dinner (and free booze) so we spent the first few hours walking around the place browsing art, and then the nicest guy (whose name I forget and am currently beating myself up about it--I was drunk ok!) drew my portrait for me and I’m absolutely in love with it, and then we all drunkely wrapped art that was auctioned off. It was the best. It was one of those nights that, when you finally crawl into bed afterwards, wraps itself around you and hums you quietly to sleep.
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Tuesday, September 12, 2017

Such A Good Aura

I really, really love my job.
I’m not sure I can stress that enough. The people here are incredibly supportive and generally just super cool. The atmosphere of the office is fast-paced, always moving, but leaving room for mistakes. The work is incredibly rewarding and makes me feel like I’m really making a difference.
On that note, however, today was really hard.
To recap my job for y’all (mostly because I can’t remember if I wrote down what I actually do yet), I help people with their rent. It’s like, if they come into the office and they owe X amount of money due to reason Y, and they have to pay it or they’ll be evicted, we can typically help them. We have lots of rules and requirements for these people to meet so we know we’re not just dumping money into nothing, but generally we get to say yes.
Generally.
Today I didn’t get to say yes at all. I talked to two separate clients, both of which I had to deny. It makes sense. Like, I understand why I had to turn them away, and they understood why we had to turn them away, but that doesn’t make it suck any less. We can’t just give away money. But to see their faces? God, fuck.
And normally on the days I have to say no, I at least get to say yes to someone else. It’s still sucky but at least I can find that relief, that change, in another client that we can assist. But today it was all No all the time. And that’s exhausting. That literally just sucks so much.
I’d even be okay if they were angry at me, and I’m sure I’ll get angry clients in the future because the threat of eviction is real and scary and makes people react in ways I know have nothing to do with me, but everyone I said no to just kind of accepted it. I could brace myself for frustration or looks of betrayal.
Understanding, though? It just makes everything settle like a stone in your throat.
I think part of what makes it worse is when you get to say yes, and you get to help these people and keep them in their homes, the joy that’s there is immense. You get to share those moments with them of relief, of excitement, of unabashed happiness that things are working out. You get to be part of the story that has a happy ending.
So after a lot of happy endings, the sad endings have blue leeching off of the pages.
On top of that, I fucking cut open my finger on a file. I’m still bleeding. For fuck’s sake.
On these difficult days I find myself looking toward my co-workers for support. For example, I’m cat-sitting for one of them this week. Her name is Shephali and her cat’s name is Karma and Karma is delightfully large and very talkative. After I leave the office, I’ll get to go hang out with that great old boy. While I’m in the office I can look toward the plants that Shephali placed on my shelf because she thought my cubicle needed some more green. And I can go to Ray, who is always encouraging and insistent that it’s no one’s fault that the No’s are as hard as they are. Or if I’m over talking about work, we can talk about anything from aliens to cannibalism (which, yes, I researched today in my free time), or leave the worst pens in the office on each other’s desk and wait for the other to notice. Or I can even go to Amy, my supervisor, who seems so surprised and thankful every time I offer to do some of her work for her. The other day when Amy met my program manager Sophie (which felt a bit like a parent teacher conference) she called me a superstar, and I could feel that in my bones.
Today someone brought me a lid to place under the pot so when I water my plants, the water doesn’t go everywhere. When I put a bandaid over my new cut, someone found me a sewing thimble to cover it so I could still type with ease. Everyone who passes wears a smile.
Today was hard. It won’t be the last hard day, I already know this. I’ve accepted that in this line of work sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose.

Either way, we keep going.
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Thursday, September 7, 2017

Home is Where the Heart Is

For someone who’s never really been homesick, there’s something really awful about being homesick.
I’ve never been the type of person to go away (summer camp, weekend trips, etc.) and wish that I was at home. That’s not my family’s fault, really. We just didn’t do lots of things. I love my parents and my siblings a lot, like a super lot, but the idea of being away from them was never something that made me sad. I knew that they’d still be there when I got back. I knew that I’d be having a better time if I was out adventuring or doing something new.
When I first applied to colleges, I only applied to out of state schools. Pennsylvania, but still. Not in Maryland. I wanted to go far away, do something new. I ended up at Towson because Casey, my roommate and best friend, convinced me. I literally applied on the last day possible. The last. Day. Possible. This is not an exaggeration.
I loved Towson, but it was still close to where I grew up. People I graduated with from high school were around literally every corner. It got to the point where I couldn't even sit in the lobby of my building without someone I didn't want to see walking in.
I spent all of my summers at Mar-Lu-Ridge. It was about two hours away from home, farther than camp, and I never really wished to be at home. I made the mountain my home. I preferred nights sleeping on the floor surrounded by my best friends than my small room at home, alone.
Again, this isn’t because of my family. It was just, there was more things somewhere else.
Now I’m in California. It is significantly farther away from home than I have ever been in my entire life.
(Six hours by plane, remember?)
And still, I’m not really homesick for a place. I lived with my dad and he moved to a new house a few years of me into school, but because I was either at school or at camp I never really was home. I didn’t get to really make his new place my own. The walls are this bright orange color that even glows when the lights are off. And when I stopped going to my mom’s on a regular basis, they got rid of my bed, so I normally sleep on the couch when I’m there.
Maybe I'm a little homesick for camp, but who isn’t homesick for camp?
Still, going home this past weekend was… really weird for me. I’ve said it before, but now that about a week has passed it’s a lot weirder.
When I was there, there were so many people. I got to see my parents, my brother. I got to see Karl and Ginny and Claire and Charlie, all of these people that I love. I got to dance and spend time with them and it wasn’t a constant battle of learning these new things about them, they just were and I just was and we existed together as we always had.
It’s a lot easier to be homesick for people.
(Easy in the sense that when you love a person, it loves you back. Not like a room, or a bed, or place. Easy in the sense that when you realize how much you miss them, it makes your toes feel like anchors that keep you weighted to your spot. Easy that it's like the wind, always there without even having to think about it. Easy in the sense that it's so, so hard.)
It’s not that my roommates here aren’t great. They teased me the other day about my blog, this blog, wondering if any of them had been mentioned by name.
Danielle, the girl I share a room with, has the best sense of humor and we can go back and forth for hours. We groan in the morning when our alarms go off and complain about work. We’ve lined our windows with succulents that we call our children. She teaches me how to cook when I really have no idea what I’m doing. She made her delicious, Spanish tortillas again because I talked about how much I loved them.
Carly, the girl who works on the other end of the office with me, makes me nervous because she likes to wait until the last minute to leave for the bus. (Today we had to run to catch it.) We talk about social justice issues and sexuality and how much we hate Trump all the time. Last night she ducked her head into my room and asked me if I wanted some tea because she was making some (and then proceeded to even pour it into a mug and bring it to me).
Amanda, Christine, Maggie, Alexander, they’re all great. They’re wonderful people and I’m seriously, seriously lucky that we ended up in this group together. I mean, seriously. There aren’t any dietary restrictions, y’all. We can eat meat and gluten and cheese. I’m living the life.
But I only just met them, what, a month ago? And while there’s still time for those really deep bonds to form, that’s hard. God, I’m so fucking tired all the time. Staying up and talking about XYZ after a long day at work where you missed the bus by two minutes so you have to wait another twenty, and then someone has to cook, and then it’s time for a house meeting, and then you have to shower, and then it’s bed time--like, where is the time? There's no time! I’m so tired, man.
And the people at work, Hannah and Ray and Virginia and all the great people I look up to there, they’re work people. They’re not people that you hang out with on the weekends. They’re old.
(Older than me, anyway. Spritely and wonderful and really not like, old, but you know what I mean.)
Literally this past week I Googled “how to make friends as an adult” because--what the fuck it’s so hard to do. You’re at work or you’re at home and the in between things are exhausting.
(Back to being an in-betweener, it seems.)
And again, it’s not that my housemates aren’t my friends. Or that my co-workers aren’t my friends. But they’re not the type of people (not yet) that you find yourself sitting on the big pleather green couch in your living room missing. I’m not homesick for them. And even if I were, they’re literally right here. I don’t need to be missing them. They’re here.
It’s like I’m at school again and my house is just 45 minutes away when it comes to those people.
But friends, friends, friends. Sitting on wet wooden benches watching the sunset over the Potomac friends. Stretch out on your futon and make fun of your messy room friends. Share a bottle of wine and watch Harry Potter friends. I miss them.
I miss them so much that I can feel it in my chest, like a brick that’s really old has started crumbling, both dust and solid pieces all at once.
Tonight’s a lonely night.
There’s something about everyone piling onto the smallest couch in the top of cabin 6, tired and exhausted, hands in each other’s hair and laughter in our mouths, that you just want. No matter where you go.

I just haven’t found that yet.

Monday, September 4, 2017

Wise Men Say

This past weekend I spent roughly a total of twelve hours in an airplane so I could spend roughly a total of 48 hours back in Maryland.
I don’t have any qualms about flying. In fact, I really like flying. There’s something overwhelmingly beautiful about that space between takeoff and flying, and flying and landing, where you’re close enough to the ground below you that everything is clear. It’s beautiful. It reminds me of those comparisons between like, human bodies and the universe. City streets look like veins, erratic, constantly flowing with something.
No, flying is cool. Turbulence can make me kind of anxious but not always. There’s also something really, really appealing about sitting in a seat surrounded by strangers who aren’t going to try and interact with you for X amount of time.
My first flight was from Oakland to LAX *insert me singing Party in the USA here, on repeat for an hour*, and then I flew from LAX to BWI. Hilariously one of my friends who works as a flight attendant landed in LAX literally twenty minutes after I had, but I had already started boarding my new plane so I didn’t get to see her.
First glimpse of MD in a month!
The first flight was short, the second was horribly, terribly, long and cramped. My favorite sky people Southwest didn’t have any flights when I needed them so I had to fly my new least favorite sky people, who charges you for everything from carry on bags to snacks. Snacks! I hadn’t eaten dinner, and no way in hell was I about to pay three dollars for one chocolate chip cookie.
The seats were way too squished together and I didn’t wear enough layers and the woman in front of me had this high, shrill voice and spent the entire time I wanted to sleep talking. Why? Great question, I don’t have any answer.
But still, there was something beautiful about that flight. I blinked myself awake more than once to look at the stars, and my God it was so many stars.
When I landed in BWI all I wanted to do was sleep. My mom was picking me up and she rushed to her feet the second she saw me. She was wearing this ridiculously hideous rainbow sweater that I know she must simply adore. It was great. We went to Chick-fil-a and then I slept in her bed from around 9:30am (travel time to get home!) to like, 1pm. Adjusting backwards to east coast time and the longest flight of my life made it a little hard for me to want to be awake.
I got to see my cats and my brother and even my dad for a brief period of time. Minutes, really. I love my family an absurd amount, but in the end, I wasn’t there to see them.


Dad: You’re telling me that you flew all the way home for a wedding but you’re not going to come home for Thanksgiving?
Me: Thanksgiving happens every year! This wedding doesn’t!
He wasn’t actually mad, he was just happy he got to see me for a little bit. But I digress. I flew over 2000 miles to watch one of my best friends in the entire world get married.
Karl & Caitlin, this one’s for you.
My mom dropped me off with Kyle and Ginny who I hung out with for the remainder of the day. We sat down for dinner at some place and I was so dehydrated from recycled air that I downed my entire glass of water and then the extra that had been placed. I drank maybe six glasses of water. I felt bad because I was actually really excited to be there and see them, but God was I tired. I just kept yawning and blinking to stay awake.
When I got to the Ridge Inn that night I fell asleep and didn’t wake up once. I honestly and truly absolutely adore my roommate, but sleeping alone in a bed that smelled kind of like home was such a blessing.
In the morning, a group of us went to Ingrams. Sweet, sweet Ingrams. My favorite place for Saturday morning breakfasts where I never actually ordered breakfast (grilled cheese and french fries for life!) was closing, is closing, will no longer be open. Which is devastating on so many levels. I can only be thankful that it happened after my final summer at camp so I could get out a few more trips with my friends.

The place was busy and the food was as it always has been and we got to say goodbye.
But then, it was time to get ready. I haven’t been to many weddings, and I’ve certainly never been to a camp wedding, and it was way exciting to see everyone and celebrate Karl and Caitlin at one of my favorite places.
It was weird, though.
I hadn’t seen any of these people in a month, which, if you think about it, really isn’t that long. My last day at camp was August 4th and the wedding was September 2nd so, yeah, a month. I’d gone way longer without seeing them so many times before. Months on end, nearly years. So to so many people, I don’t think it was that big of a deal that they saw me.
To be fair, many of them asked about California, and I got to gush about my life like the whole night, but still. A month. It wasn’t some grand reunion of people. I spent a lot of the night thinking, but wait, I literally have moved across the country since I’ve seen you all last. Which, again, was acknowledged. But these friends hadn’t done the moving, or the starting a new job, or the adjustment to a new place. So while they asked, they couldn’t understand how really fucking weird it was for me to be back there.
I’d said my goodbyes to camp with lots and lots and lots of crying, but then I was back.
So that was weird.
But it was also, so, so great!
When I grabbed my stuff to go get ready I passed by one of the rooms all the groomsmen were getting ready in and got a glimpse of Karl, who waved, and that was the best. And then we got ready and went to the church (which was huge and beautiful and had White Jesus all over the place) where we watched the ceremony, which was the best.
There’s something wonderful about getting to watch one of your best friend’s/role model’s/basically brother’s get to marry the person that they’re totally in love with. I’m going to gush about Karl and Caitlin but whatever, it was so cute. They were so serious the whole ceremony but every time they would look at each other they would just break into these wide and wholesome grins and they were radiating happiness and it was so pure and man, man, getting to be there was the best.
And then we went back to camp to celebrate. The whole place felt different. In my head I knew I was at camp but the bathrooms had been gendered again and the giant circus tent that had been set up in the field made the field feel… bigger. The boards had been torn down from the ladder inside the barn (whoops) and twinkle lights were all over the place and it was so soft and beautiful all at once.
(Side note: another weird thing is that it was raining. It hadn’t rained in CA since I’ve been there! The weather fools you. It’s always overcast so you always think it’s going to rain but it never does! And then suddenly I’m in Maryland where everything is green as hell and there’s rain and it was actually very overwhelming. Along with this, while I was shivering in MD, all of my housemate were being hit by the Bay Area heatwave and I only made it back in time to feel it fading. The one weekend I switched coasts, it appears so did the weather.)


I was essentially at the kids table with many other counselors, seated way in the back. Was it way far from all of the things happening toward the front of the tent like the first dance and the toasts and such? Yes. But was our table right next to the bar? Absolutely! So no complaints from me.
I spent the night dancing with friends and with lots of hugs and smiling so widely it hurt my cheeks every time I saw Caitlin and Karl. There was one point where I remember seeing the ring on Karl’s finger and being like, wait WHOAAAA, and then I pointed it out to him and he was like: I know!!!
It was just so good.
Between the secret drink just for camp counselors (wink wink) and getting to climb to the top of the barn (a literal dream come true) and getting to see Karl get MARRIED, it was a really great weekend.
Definitely worth 12 hours in a plane.
Now that I’m back in Oakland, though, I feel like it’s really finally starting. It was strange to go home, no matter how short, after just around a month away. But that was it. Unless people hop on planes and take their own miserable six hour ride out west, I’m kind of… here. And everyone else is there.
The transition is complete.

But I guess it was complete when I was sitting in the airport in BWI waiting for my plane to take me back to Oakland, thinking, “God, I can’t wait to be home.”

Goodbye Bay

When the last day of your program comes, you won't be ready. You'll have put off packing for forever. It's Thursday night and ...