n.i.c.

it's the first time i really felt sad.

i've missed things. i've missed people. oh i've missed people. i've missed mexican food and to-go boxes made of compostable material instead of styrofoam. i've missed walking instead of driving. i've missed people that not only eat, but know what kale and arugula and quinoa are. i've missed reusable water bottles. i've missed my school and all its wonderful, honest, involved parents. i've missed a mean temperature of 67. i've missed my mom and dad being a drivable distance away. i've missed making actual money, feeling valued for what i'm working so hard to do. i've missed knowing where i am, being able to summon a girlfriend for a beer in a matter of moments, visible water from any perspective, people filling the cherished scarcity of outdoor space, infinite hugs per day, and simple familiarity.

there are many, many things to miss within this move, having made such a big change.

there are also many, many new and incredible things i relish about being here on a daily basis. some of which i've enumerated, and others i quietly cherish.

mostly, i love nic. i keep sitting down to write about that and i feel silly almost somehow. i feel overwhelmed by it. i feel obnoxious saying it. i want to say, i stand at the end of the bed or the counter at 8:09 am every morning and still feel mushy and transparent and totally encompassed as i kiss his stupid face that spent the last 30 minutes singing some obnoxious song on repeat at full volume, while making me breakfast. that we bother each other like we're either eight years old or eighteen years married. that sometimes i pick fights, because i'm crabby or sad about something else or scared about loving someone real and all the way for maybe the first time and that makes me totally, utterly panicked. that we're both kind of, totally lost, but i still would never, ever choose anyone else to be lost with. that sometimes i come home after a terrible day at school and cry and cry and make nic feel like it's his problem, because i've decided the problem is definitely totally him, since he's the only thing i actually love here, and instead of chastising me, he says, let's get out of the house you silly girl, and that's all i ever needed. 

that i love the way we communicate, even when we're upset with each other. i love his big hairy face and the slightly less big clean face that hides underneath. i love his always perfect body temperature, his endless ideas, his music choices, his rants on anything from racism to theology, his coffee, his insistence on taking the perfect picture. i love the silly dance he does to make me laugh. i love his buns. i love that he makes me breakfast and dinner every day. that after he does it, every cupboard is open and the floors and counters are covered in debris, but whatever concoction he made out of the almost decomposed scraps i stock the refrigerator with was so worth it. that he does something funny until it's so annoying that it becomes funny again. that he can admit when he's wrong. that he kindly tolerates that it takes me twenty times longer to much less gracefully admit when i was wrong. that i'm wrong a lot and he still loves me. that he loves me.

it feels good to be loved and seen for who i actually am.

i mean, i also have plenty of complaints. i complain all the time. i bitch and moan about things like we've been married a hundred years and i am the queen of female perfection, deserving of all things just as i want them, exactly when i want them.

i make cartoons like this, illustrating the apparent misery and discontent that is my life:

i'm a handful and i know it. 

i'm really lucky to have found a person i can see myself being myself with-- in whatever future incarnations that self might entail-- for a very, very long time. i can see myself loving and complaining about nic for several lifetimes and i'm thankful for that.

you know what? i started writing to write about how sad i was. because i was feeling pretty sad. i miss something, not that ever even really was, but something i'm looking for. i'm missing some future thing that involves elements of my past, but is definitely not my past. that's all very vague. i was feeling vague. sad. 

i'm just missing direction and satisfaction and fulfillment and drive in so many facets of my life.

but not with nic.

i started writing to moan about those things and then i ended writing about what i loved and appreciated and now i don't feel sad anymore. what a surprising turn of events that gratitude allays our discontent.

i was going to try to loop back around and fulfill the opening of these words with subsequent words about how sad i felt, but now it would be inauthentic so i won't. i thought about editing them out entirely and just leaving those words about nic, but then it would lose what's so great about this teeny moment of my life.

it's an analogy for my current life experience. it's hard. and i complain about it. and i'm sure i'm miserable in certain ways. i'm sure that if you asked what i needed, i would look down at the floor in the other direction and pathetically mumble, everything.

but then i look at what i've actually got, instead of longing for those that i want. and what i've got is pretty damn good. nicholas b kaniasty, you're pretty damn good. and i love you. you have a stupid face and a big, warm heart and you make me totally crazy and i love you. and you know it. i look at you and smile at 8:09 every morning and you know it.

you say, "you've got it bad."

and i do.

this is what i've got and it's good.

i've got it bad and it's good.

"of course you like that one. it's so generic." -nic.

meridian.

i first met patrick upon visit number one to louisville. visit number one was, of course, also visit number only, keeping in line with the alacrity with which my entire relationship with nic has unfolded.

this will sound silly, but i moved as much for patrick as i did for nic.

let me back up.

i moved, because i was immediately and emphatically in love and wanted to indulge that love. follow it, explore it, magnify it, ground it, give it space to be real and mundane and everyday. i moved, because nic lived here and i lived there and the distance between here and there was far too much. i moved, because i wanted him and was not content to have anything except for exactly what i wanted.

yes, of course all that was true. it still is.

those reasons were the impetus, the romantic version, the beautiful and daring story.

but then there was also what was underneath. the need to move that had long since been in place. the routines i'd created that satisfied what i thought i needed, what people expected. the stress i felt day to day. the franticness with which i was living. the feeling that my body was slowly, but certainly retaliating, becoming achy, sore, strained, decayed.

after spending almost an entire month unable to sleep or move my neck, losing the ability to rotate my right shoulder, and lamenting my ever-clenched jaw and subsequently lopsided face, it was very evident that as much as i loved san francisco and wanted to hold onto all of the joy and love i had there, that ultimately it-- i, rather-- was becoming insurmountably unhealthy. that i needed to uproot the routine and find something more sustainable.

skip to visit one and nic taking me to meet patrick. patrick is an acupuncturist and one of nic's best friends. i had heard plenty of almost mystical stories about him prior to meeting him.

i was skeptical.

not about patrick as a person, but about the idea that he was even one small part as intuitive and capable of healing as nic depicted. i am more than willing to indulge romantic ideas-- ideas of the universe working intentionally for us, ideas of synchronicity, celebrations of joy and love and redemption and the resilience and ultimate goodness of human beings. these are all things i genuinely believe in, absorb, try to emulate.

and yet, despite the liberalness of my beliefs, i'm doubtful. doubtful about people that laud the amazing healing power of acupuncture, of herbs. people, who ask about my sign or my birth hour. people, who want to feel my pulse and ask about my poop. it's not that i haven't partaken in it, because i certainly have. i've been to the acupuncturist plenty of times. it's just that i'm not completely sold.

i believe, wholeheartedly, in the healing power of the belief of healing power. that efficacy goes hand in hand with expectation. the placebo effect, if you will. clearly there's a term for it, so i haven't unearthed something revelatory here.

it's taking me forever to get to the point.

the point is that, patrick undid all of that.

i walked into meridian acupuncture and said my requisite cheerful hi, nice to meet you! upon being introduced to patrick, and he replied, "cut out dairy."

no hello. no participation in social niceties.

i didn't quite understand him, excuse me? and so he repeated, "cut out dairy."

being a girl, who basically only wants to ingest various forms of carbohydrates and cheese, i was reluctant to actually hear these words and probed him for more information. he asked me a series of questions about my health and bodily functions that rapidly clarified that he, without any prior contact or conversation with me, knew exactly what my body needed and had been doing. it was vaguely uncomfortable, but also somewhat relieving to be seen in such a way.

we talked briefly and i asked, anything else? to which he, terrifyingly accurately replied, "yes. don't hide behind the laugh."

this, of course, made release an uncomfortable hide-behind-the-laugh laugh. because, simply, this person knew more about me in three minutes than most people know in three years. people think i'm joyful and blissfully happy, and i am. i really really am. but underneath that, there's anxiety and discomfort and a lot of cheese that apparently making me really unhealthy.

he said i had a long way to go to be healthy, but i wanted lots of pretty babies and i could get there if i wanted it for myself and for them.

i went back to san francisco and talked about nic and how i loved him.

and then i'd talk about patrick and how he'd seen inside me.

when i decided to move, i said, patrick will fix me.

fast forward to now. i've lived here, inexplicably, over three months. on saturday, i finally, finally went in to see patrick. it's easy to wait. it's easy to wait when things are only minorly uncomfortable. we acclimate. we come to view them as normal. we corrode, slowly, gradually accepting, integrating each small pain or limitation into our daily life until we barely notice anymore. we come to allow discomfort as the standard.

we wait until we're so far gone, until something climactic and terrible happens, to attend to ourselves. we wait to fix what's totally broken instead of working regularly to maintain.

i refuse to do it anymore. i refuse to be unhealthy. i refuse to wait to be so broken that i have no other choice than rectify things.

so i went to patrick. i walked into meridian and it was more beautiful than i remembered. it was serene. quiet and warm. the walls lined with glass jars, filled with unfamiliar things. it smelled like earth.

patrick and i sat down on either side of a bed and he said, "complain to me."

and so i did.

my neck.
my shoulder.
my lower back.
my stomach.
my jaw.
my head.
my stupid, anxiety-ridden, worried, busy head.

he listened and asked questions. and then he told me. he told me things it felt like i'd always known. i didn't know them, but once he said them, they seemed so evident, so irrefutably true, that it seemed certain they'd always been in my head.

they were many and i, despite all my words, am incapable of capturing all that is the wisdom patrick gently and casually revealed to me, but the salient parts were this.

i am an earth person, and the earth person is governed by the stomach and the spleen. my actual stomach is incredibly uncomfortable and dysfunctional. my emotional stomach is as well. he said, "this is literally a problem of digestion." as in, both the way in which and the kind of food i am ingesting, and also the way in which and the kind of emotions i am ingesting. the way i'm processing things is off. and my body is retaliating. it's manifesting as worry and stress and an unhealthy body.

i need to reset.

he assured me he can help me reset. redirect energy. encourage movement and absorption. but that i'm also responsible. for what i'm putting in. i'm supposed to eat warm, cooked food. no dairy. he was understanding that this all would take time. it takes time to change habits, to edit. but i feel absolutely certain that he's right and my intention to have a long and healthy life makes me want to make those changes.

he poked me with needles.

he said, "these are going to be terrible."

they were terrible.

i've had acupuncture before and this was more terrible. it felt like every punctured part of my body was radiating heat and pulsing with pain. tiny, rhythmic waves of pain, radiating out in ripples from the source. but also that kind of pain you can tell is necessary. that kneading of knots. that massaging of clots. a loosening. breaking up what has become congested.

i throbbed.

and then it was over. patrick unpinned me, hugged me, and sent me away.

he said it will take time, but it will be worth it and i will be so much better. and i believe him.

i feel better even just knowing i believe him. it feels good to believe. to allow myself the space to reset. to have people to help me.

i'm in louisville now. i am three months into louisville. and it will all take time. but it will be worth it and i will be so much better.

life is so much better.

"it's strange how things that once seemed so important just stop being important one day."

these were mariah's words when i sent her the update:

i stopped wearing blush.

once upon a time, mariah and i were roommates, and i informed her that it was her duty, as my dear friend and protector, to make sure that, if i died, i was buried with plenty of blush on my cheeks. because i piled it on every day and felt not quite myself without it. i wanted to go into the ground as the beth that i and everyone else (or so i imagined) pictured myself to be.

and then one day, without really noticing, i stopped. 
and it crossed my mind that i should tell mariah, in case i died and she was still the one to bury me. i needed to update her on who and how i was.
so i told her.

and then she said those words. and they're so easy and true. things that once seemed so important just stop being important one day. it was once important to me that my bangs had the just-so sideways swoop. that i kept it pitch black. it was important that i go out 5-7 night per week. it was important that i talked to all the people all the time. it was important that things looked a certain way, that i maintained a certain level of joviality and ease, that i responded quickly enough, that i took care of people the way i thought they expected. infinite moons ago, it was even important that i had a denim baseball jacket, that i saw hanson in concert, that i get over 99% on my french test.

today i don't speak french. my hair is blonde. i've stopped wearing blush.

the things that seemed so important are not.

and so i ask myself; i came here, really, to ask myself: what's important?

what transcends time and space and trends and routine and availability?

there are things that faded away quickly, easily. there are things i moved to fade away from. there are things i didn't expect to fade. there are things that i expected to fade that have persisted. what's important?

i moved because i love nic. and also because i needed to reconcile that question. what's important?

what's important is love and tiny moments and the things you take with you wherever you go. 

what's important is not even the identity i thought i had. i never get to wear a dress. i'm crammed in a generic pink scrub top and the same pair of black athletic pants over fifty hours a week. i spend a large majority of my free time cleaning the house, grocery shopping, doing laundry, and exercising. i eat at home, i make pennies for the most exhausting and demanding job i've ever worked, i can't afford to bring the boy i love with me to a wedding in november, and the compost pile i imagined is actually just a pile of rotting food covered in flies in the back of the yard.

but those are not the things. those are surprises. they could be disappointments, if i didn't have perspective. but ultimately, really they are not what's important. what's important is one of my beloved four year olds, who calls me mr. beth, telling me he wants to marry me. what's important is talking on a banana phone and making the new guy feel comfortable. what's important is store-bought tortellini and cheap red wine on the porch during the last days of heat. what's important is my first real experience of fall and the tiny fire-touched splotches of tree. what's important is coming home to nic every day and my genuine thrill at seeing him, at smelling his face, kissing his mouth, laying my head on his chest and moaning or raving about my day. what's important is missing him when he's gone, always wanting to be with him, but being secure in our absence. what's important is a small walk in the park. what's important is a motorcycle ride and my face pressed into his back and the chill that reminds me of san francisco and the hum and the freedom to only watch the world blur by and listen to the growl of an engine for a while. what's important is reading a book aloud together, practicing german, holding hands, sharing an entree, bickering over stupid things, learning how the other person loves, making the bed, taking pictures in a photo booth, baking banana bread.

there was a moment the other night. i was doing dishes and nic was taking out the trash. i looked out the kitchen window that spans the driveway and his impossibly handsome self was there, shuffling discarded pieces of floorboard between the trash cans and the curb. i felt at home. i felt the version of life i've anticipated my entire being. of togetherness and partnership. of boring and everyday. of work. of moving forward. of keeping up in small ways. of the day-to-day. it was important. what's important is mundane and small and revelatory in its simplicity.

the truth is it's hard. i feel unfamiliar and poor and insecure in ways that i haven't in a decade. but i chose it. and i chose it, because, somewhere, i knew it would be exactly that. because i got so sheathed in the false securities of my routine that i lost what was important.

so here i am. 

i don't wear blush anymore. i'm not pretending life is any rosier than it actually is.

but the truth is, too, that in the absence of that lacquered rosiness, life is still actually pretty sweet, it just appears and swells in a way that's a little more natural.

today i went to the gym after work. i listened to music, loud, and stretched and lifted weights on the empty, glossy floor and secretly danced a little. i was flushed and hot and enlivened and i looked in the mirror and liked what i was. unadorned.

this is what's important. the grit that is everyday life and the tiny victories within it that make it beautiful.

i feel lucky to be so basic right now. to be surrounded by such real, substantial, unshakeable love. to figure out who and where i am, slowly, unprotected and yet completely safe. i feel pretty damn sure of what's important. and i'm thankful for that.

the truth is, i don't wear blush anymore. and this is hard. and it's so good. and i'm the very luckiest girl alive.

"it's not a celebration..."

a month ago today, i left san francisco.

i got in my car in the still darkness of morning and expected to feel overwhelmingly emotional, leaving my newly totally empty house and the beautiful lurching hills and the proximity to so many people i've loved so long. but instead, i just felt like a girl in a car, wondering just how long it would take to get where i was going and at what point it was legitimate to stop for a treat or a pee. i was a girl in jean shorts and a baseball tee in an old dirty truck, setting out on the same roads i've driven for over ten years now.

anticipation and reflection are so much, and reality, often not much at all. it's what makes movies and songs so moving. they're condensed. they're encapsulated. they've filtered out all the passing moments of just sitting in a car, watching mile marker after mile marker bleed into one another, and all that's left are those crystalline moments of either intense joy or sadness and they seem like so much.

today doesn't seem like so much. it seems like today. it's wednesday. i'm wearing pajamas for pj day at school. i have thirty minutes to myself in between shuffling around maybe the craziest babies i've ever encountered. i'm drinking now cold coffee and eating the remains of a sandwich that sat in my sweltering car for at least an entire day. said car only intermittently works. i left dishes in the sink this morning.

this is what i do. i wake up early to snug nic and go for a run. we drink coffee and eat oatmeal that he makes while i shower. i go to work. he goes to school. we come home early evening, make something for dinner, watch a show or read a book together, then go to bed. we do it again.

it's mundane in its consistency. it is not the adventure that i anticipated in coming here. i said that word so many times before leaving. adventure adventure adventure. it's not what I expected. and yet it is the biggest blessing. 

this is what i needed. what i needed was not the movie version of life. not the beautiful, cinematic moments of twirling in circles, laughing with girlfriends, at free concerts in the park. not spontaneous snow days from work, spent at barbecue restaurants, drinking champagne for pretend birthdays. not festivals and parties and anniversary events.

i had that and it was fun and i love all those moments in retrospect. but it just got to be so much of that all the time that i completely and totally stopped relishing it.

 it's not a celebration if you do it every day.

i needed everyday. i needed consistency and routine. i needed to be bored. i needed to get back to basics, to encounter them for the first time really, so i could relearn to relish what life is.

i don't concede to ennui; i don't want a thoughtless, routine life; i do not intend to just move through the days. but for now, this is good. this is cutting out all the excess to remind me what's important.

what's important? what's important is that i love coming home to this boy at the end of the day. what's important is that i want to kiss his back at night and hand him his towel after a shower in the morning. what's important is him doing homework and me, the dishes. what's important is a tiny gummy penguin surprise and a canvas bag in my car. what's important is small and simple and together. what's important is not grand or overly demonstrative. it's a small collection of moments that make everything else okay, that make the other bits cohesive.

this is my adventure. my adventure is resetting. my adventure is muting the overwrought daily celebration and learning that celebrating does not have to occur at such a high volume.

my adventure is being with a boy i love, taking care of myself, and that being enough. my adventure is letting that be enough.

"no, but seriously, how are you?"

literally every day since the moment i left san francisco, i thought would surely be the day i would write some words here. now three weeks have passed (what?!) and it's saturday again-- 21 full days since i sat light-headed and detached in the warm goodbye embraces of the many people i've loved so long. too much has happened to properly attend to any of it.

i wrote mini stories in my head. i wrote stories as i drove across america, surprisingly enjoying the many passing hours of highway-- of salt deposits and rock art, of the comfort of so many endless blue hills, of car naps and conversations and the power of boredom, of the mundane, to give perspective. i wrote stories about the meaningfulness of watching the time and space between san francisco and louisville pass. i wrote stories about candice and friendship. i wrote stories about bravery or fear or how they often seem interchangeable.

i wrote stories about that first moment i got here and smelling nic's skin and the concurrent experience of terror and comfort while his sweaty face pressed against my own; stories about the night, which was warmer than any san francisco day, and the oddness of sitting outdoors, close to midnight, drinking beer and sliding with heat. i wrote stories about the moment candice left and it became real, when it stopped being a vacation and i cried, because i was scared.

i wrote stories about crying, nearly every day. not for the reasons i thought or expected. usually not even for reasons i could ever describe. about nic's patience and his confusion. about the difficulty of feelings and partners and then feelings occurring around said partners and then the feeling that the partner is responsible for the initial feeling, when in fact they truly are not. i wrote stories about relationships and the fear of something that seems very possibly forever and the kernel of self-sabotage that lives within me.

i wrote stories about home. about how minutes were sometimes hard, but i immediately and ultimately have a surprising feeling of peace in being here. because here is where nic is and here is where i'll stay. here is wherever nic is. here is where my home is. i wrote stories about loving nic, about how huge and revelatory our love seems and then how obvious and banal somehow, just in its ease. i wrote stories about so many contradictions.

i wrote all these stories and then life kept happening. i got a job. we got a house. this is the house:

i did not love it and then i emphatically DID. it needs a lot of work and we need a lot of things, so very quickly life became about work and things and not so much about stories and reflections and sitting about musing on the impacts of moving.

it's just so funny what you think, what you expect, and then what is. i expected this move to be big and beautiful and hard and rending. i spent so much time anticipating that.

and what i ended up with is very much just now. it's saturday. it's days passing. it's three weeks before you know it. it's laundry and a dirty bathroom floor and scratched, waxy kitchen cabinets and the decision of which duvet is neither too masculine nor too feminine and which most importantly is easily laundered. it's feeding yourself several times a day and the surprising difficulty and expense of that. it's the sudden thunderstorm on a day that feels like a heated wet towel already. it's eating ice cream on the couch instead of finishing your work. it's talk of going to the fair. it's kissing hello and goodnight and good morning and weekend coffee in bed and meeting the friends and seemingly always having to put gas in the car and holding hands and hugging and bickering and laughing. it's just the days. the days. the days are passing and now i'm passing them here and they're with my nic.

maybe i didn't take the time to write, because i wasn't sure what to say. i wasn't sure how to say words that weren't forcedly emphatic or disparagingly sad. i wasn't sure how to say words that seemed like what i wanted to seem. i wasn't even sure about my seeming. 

the truth is, i'm not quite sure how i am. 

it's days and it's stories and it's in louisville now.

this isn't meant to be sad. i am eight thousand percent sure i made the right decision. i would not take it back for one moment. 

i miss my friends. i miss them bad. but other than that, i don't miss san francisco, and i think that's the weirdness of it all. that whatever amount i'm unsettled here still is not some desire for somewhere else. it's not some flaw in my relationship or a desire for a different or better paying job or for the couch i can't quite afford. it's nothing that can be solved by an arrangement of things or people or even words.

it's just time. it's just the bigness of life that i'd somehow lost that now feels so overwhelming in its view. like i stepped back to look at the panorama and it's big and it makes me feel small and even in that revelry, i still have to keep feeding myself and doing the dishes and shitting and that that all feels strange together somehow. it's the big and the small, standing side by side, and the uncertainty of how to attend to either. it's the not attending but the just going.

it's so many big and little things, trying to fill up the same space.

i am, for now, a very saturated contradiction. these are the things i know:

i'm here.
i'm glad i'm here.
i made the right choice.
i moved for a boy and i moved for me.

everything else will come in time.

for now, it's saturday and my name is beth.

FAQs

true confessions: somewhere in the last week, i became so totally overwhelmed/ in denial/ saturated that i basically stopped feeling things. i mean, i feel things in the minutiae, like god i wish that not-very-smart person hadn't left a lock on the trailer i was supposed to rent or man, now that said lock is finally removed, i am very irritated that a firetruck is running drills for an it's-gonna-be-a-while amount of time in the only alleyway that allows me to access the unfettered trailer or maybe i shouldn't have rapidly eaten sixteen donut holes, because now i feel like vomiting.

those things i feel. but the big stuff, the breadth and scope and depth-- the expanse of it all-- that i have basically stopped feeling. it's too much. i am going about life just as if it were every day life except people are making me 95% more beautiful, heartfelt cards and crying 100% more over me. i'm drinking my coffee and running my errands and going to and from work and still going home before 10 pm. 

it just turns out to be a lot of feeling and talking. i think the real problem is that it's about things that i don't yet know how to feel or talk about. it's all projection. 

i just saw my dear surya and was bemoaning how exhausted i am at being the focus of so much emotion. in her ever loving, gentle, humorous, but also frank way, she basically said, you don't get to be sad that so many people love you and want to know about what you're doing. which is true. i don't. and, really, i'm not.

i am so so so abundantly loved and i do not begrudge any person wanting to hold me and love me and look at me and be near me and weep bitter tears over my impending departure and know what on earth i'm about to do, because firstly, if they did not i would be weirded out and lamenting people's lack of interest in me, and secondly, because i would do the exact same thing were some person i loved leaving. i tried to think about what it was that plagued me so, that had turned off the feeling, and it is, i think, both self preservation, but also just a side effect of having repeated the same things and feelings so many times that i've become slightly numb to them.

(this repetition effect does NOT extend to my general feelings of love, adoration of babies, joy of being, and intense affection for all things cupcakey, sweet, colorful, and huggy. it is, i think, a bi-product of my generally having no idea how to answer most questions, making up some version of an answer every time i respond, and essentially turning into an improv actor, who has tried to "improvise" the same line too many times and has subsequently lost any genuineness, fervor, or relatability.)

with that extensive preface, in a fit of obsession with myself, which assumes anyone cares beyond those who have already asked, i will now share my responses to the most frequently asked questions:

1. where exactly are you going?

louisville. for whatever reason, i keep referring to it as just kentucky. i think this is a. because i basically only recently learned where kentucky is on a map (sorry private school education for failing you) and am holding tight to that knowledge and b. i cannot appropriately pronounce the name of the city to which i am moving.

2. can you pronounce louisville?

no.

this is me: LOO-ee-vill.

other people: lulvul

me: what?


3. where are you living? do you have a place?

also no. nic has some wonderful friends, who are letting us stay at one of their unused homes, while we look for a place together. apparently real estate is so basically free in kentucky that one can own more than one home and leave one of their homes uninhabited. the idea of owning anything is totally foreign to me. the idea that these people are awesome and generous and my new best friends is very real to me.

4. is anyone moving into your place? can i move into your place?

sadly no. the nice people upstairs are having a baby and grandma is moving in. if grandma comes up short on rent, i will let you know.

5. how are you getting there?

i'm driving! i got rid of all my furniture, seriously pared down the rest of my belongings, and am traveling with a 4x8 u-haul trailer hitched to my cupcake truck. it is filled with the thingsthatmadethecut.  here is a depiction of me driving away as envisioned by one of my most glorious and beloved babies:

(trailer not pictured here)

6. oh my god you're driving? are you driving alone? will you make it? do you know what you're doing? will you die?

yes i'm driving! my best friend candice is coming with me. i (sort of) joked that candice is the reason i'm moving. i basically talked about moving to kentucky 12 minutes after i met nic, because i'm casual. when it became a real possibility, candice said "so am i driving with you?" i had not yet decided when or how or even really if i was going. she averred that she needed to know for her own schedule. and thus the move was solidified.

we are theoretically taking three days to go between sf and salt lake city, salt lake and omaha, and then omaha and louisville. i am pretty sure we'll make it. i am pretty prepared to make it. i have a first aid kit, a lifetime supply of water and snacks, a freshly serviced car, AAA on call, and no practical knowledge of how vehicles work. 

in this whole scenario, candice is my greatest strength. we do not plan on dying.

7. that's a lot of driving. what if you don't make it in three days?

it is. if it takes more than three days, i imagine it will take four. but it will not be two.

8. when do you actually leave?

sunday! as in this sunday. august 3rd. early. oh man.

9. do you have a job?

no.

this is a beautiful and challenging exercise for me in saying no. i am not actually denying anyone anything i guess, but it really is a lot of unknowns and it's weird for me to even say the word. i'm a yes girl! 

i know that i want to work with babies. i also know that this will pay me basically zero dollars and i am coming from the only place maybe ever-- as in, mission kids, not san francisco-- that legitimately pays early childcare educators a livable wage (thank you mission kids!). still, it's what i love and i'm going to do it regardless. i have a job interview the thursday after i get there. i'm going to feel it out, get to know some babies and families, and eventually hope to start my own school that is basically mission kids, ie. lots of free play, emergent curriculum, high parent involvement, organic snacks, focus on social/ emotional development, best-school-ever kind of deal.

10. are you scared?

yes.

11. are you excited?

YES.

12. what are you going to miss about the bay area?

this is the most interesting question someone asked me. when i tried to answer, i had no idea what i was saying. this is why i think it's important to go. 

as a semi-adult person, i've only ever lived in the bay area. i thus foolishly assume that all places are compact, diverse, bustling, liberal, green, and closely surrounded by abundant and stunning nature. whether or not i love louisville, i'm excited to have something to which i can actually compare the bay area. i'm excited to expand my view of the world, to see how other people live, and to maintain what i feel and believe in a place that very well might not feel and believe the same. 

what do you love about the bay area? please tell me. my world is so small up until now and i'm so curious about what other people know.

13. insert question here that i'm going to answer with this:

it's also important for me to go, because i want to ask people if it's okay for me to go. i look for approval. i want people to agree with what i'm doing. i have somehow come to require affirmation. 

i am doing this, because i want it. because i choose it. because i want to know what it feels like to choose something for myself and own whatever happens, whether the outcome is good or bad. what i expected or not. i want something that is just mine and i sort of forgot how to do that in a place that's become so comfortable for me. because maybe it's time to be uncomfortable for a minute.

because i choose nic. but also because i choose myself. i choose different and fear and nerves with the possibility that it will be so totally excellent that i can't imagine i was ever afraid.

nothing was bad here. i love san francisco. i love its hum. i love its rolling, hazy, starless nights. i love its impossible hills, its expansive stretches of icy water, its brightly-colored buildings with their touching skins. i love its people-littered parks and so many festivals and its overpriced salads and narrow streets and its loudly-beating heart. i love the people i've met here. i loved my job. i loved my many nights out and my readily available lunch dates and my babies being born and i even love the impossibility of sustaining it all. i love how hard san francisco makes you work, how often you want to give up, but how always, always, on the drive in across a bridge from any direction, my heart would swell at the line of this dreary-skied city in all its glory and my mouth would say to my chest, you live here.

but there's more. i know there's more. i don't know if it's better. i just know it's different and i'm big enough to know that i don't know enough of what different is like.

i wrote a little thank you note to the parents of mission kids and a tiny part went like this: The kids know I'm moving because I love a boy, but I also told them I'm moving because it's time for me to see some new things too, because life is big and amazing and we learn things about ourselves and the world by trying new things. I've lived in the Bay Area for twelve years now! It's time. Their own brave and curious spirits reminded me that it was time.

that's all. it's just time. i love a boy and also it's time. my beloved san francisco, i will miss you. i'll come back and visit.

but for now, i love a boy. and it's time.

"i've got you"

the thing no one tells you about moving across the country is that it's HARD. or expensive. or hard and expensive. there are infinity things to do and pay for. or maybe everyone would tell you that, but i never bothered to ask, because i was so busy imagining myself browsing with nic at lowe's for the perfect soothing pale dusty blue wall color, playfully teasing each other, and reveling in the beautiful simplicity of our everyday life.

actually before that happens you have to box up all your things and live in heaping piles of crap you can't imagine why you kept and bring home pre-made salads for dinner only to realize you've already packed all your forks so you end up spooning wet gobs of lettuce into your mouth with your fingers. yes, the glamour has not quite set in.

and honestly that's really all quite dramatic and not so different from my everyday life, which is some version of haphazard chaos, to which i am quite accustomed. i did all the things well for the most part. i booked a u-haul a long time ago. i packed gradually. i made each one of 87 individual trips to goodwill on drives to and from work. i conscientiously disposed of things that could be used as materials for art projects by donating them to SCRAP. i donated unwanted books to the library. i ordered a backstock of my required monthly medications before my healthy san francisco insurance/ non-insurance expired. i sold furniture on craigslist. i donated unused canned food to a food bank. i spackled holes in the wall, painted, and wiped down bathroom walls. i had my car serviced. i renewed my cpr/ first aid certification, got a new tb test, revised my resume, and wrote a cover letter in anticipation of getting a new teaching job. i pumped myself up! i did it all! i'm proactive and i'm on it! I AM IN CONTROL!

this makes me sound mostly crazy and, honestly, i feel a little crazy. though being proactive is nice, i've basically been moving for two months and now that it's down to those last minutes i'm just ready to be done with the anticipation of moving and onto the new phase of actually living.

also, i did not do it all. in order to attach the trailer to my truck, i needed to install some wires that would connect the tail lights and turn signals from my car to the trailer itself. i figured this could happen when i had my car serviced in santa barbara. apparently, it could not.

they sent me to a place down the street, which could also not. they sent me to u-haul itself, where i purchased the wiring. 60 dollars and an hour to install. the man assured me it was easy and i could probably do it myself. i felt tired of waiting and paying for things that seem extraneous to me. i am independent! i decided i would do it myself.

by do it myself, i actually meant make my brother do it for me. we set out reading about ground wires and light testers and signals. he stripped wires; i taped them. at the end we had at least adhered the wires in some fashion and we felt successful.

the next day i took it back to u-haul to have them tested. they didn't work. not only did they not work, but then my car wouldn't start. they didn't have time to install them correctly that day. after much jumping on my car (literally), i got it to work. (this is a story that's not worth explaining. if you are a mechanic, however, check in with me and i will tell you this weird story and maybe you will solve all my car/ life problems.)

back in sf, i attempted to fix the wires myself, failed,  and then took myself to 3 different auto shops and 2 u-haul centers. this is an abbreviated version of a story that looks like me, ricocheting around san francisco in a frustrated panic, unsuccessfully trying to charm someone into helping me with my apparently ineffective good looks and sparkling personality. either they didn't have time for days or they didn't know how.

i generally decided that life was terrible, no one wanted to help me, and the universe was trying to destroy any fiber of spirit, joy, or love that was left in my body. i was, by no means, feeling dramatic or sorry for myself.

finally i crawled out to the abyss that is bayshore and a man named david said he'd help me, but it would have to be in three hours. in that interim, i drove home, bleached my shower, effectively burned off the top layer of my face with concentrated chemical fumes, and had an emotional breakdown. 

the thing no one tells you about being an adult is that it's HARD. or again, people surely tell you that, but, for all the reasons that are me and my preoccupation with ponies and love and positivity and joy, i sometimes fail to really ingest that information. i was wallowing in the roughness of doing something basically on my own. i didn't care that u-haul guy #2 couldn't fix my truck, but did he have to act like i was assaulting his newborn puppy by asking? i didn't care that garage #3 couldn't take me until saturday, but did they have to be so offended that i suggest they, as an auto shop, do something to alter/ aid my auto? why was everyone so bent on making my worst day the actual worst day alive? why did no one care that this was hard for me and i'm scared and i'm doing a big thing and i really was organized in every other way and i just needed help with this one thing before i get my truck thursday morning? why did everyone hate love and my relationship so much that they wished to make it impossible to happen?

yes. i was spiraling. 

i returned to u-haul at my allotted time. david came to help me. it will be about a half hour, he says. a half hour was actually an hour and, due to lack of any civilization nearby other than freeway, i was held captive in u-haul with its profusion of unhappy people in grinch sweatpants shoveling around what seemed to be enormous bags of empty candy wrappers, while a four note musical riff played on repeat in the background. i thought i would die. i thought my day was the end of days. i thought i had entered actual hell and the address was 1575 bayshore boulevard.

mercifully, david was finally done. he showed me that my lights were at last working. he asked who on earth had installed them in the first place. whoops. so much for being independent.

i asked him where i should pay.

he said, i've got you.

my dear sweet david, what did you say?

i've got you. i just said it was one of our own trucks.

as in, you don't want me to pay you any money?

it's cool.

then i hugged him. i did not ask if i could hug him. he did not mind that i hugged him. i said, i really needed someone to be nice to me right now, so thank you.

i would have paid him seven thousand dollars just to attach the goddam wires correctly. i just wanted it to be done. it wasn't about money. it was about a day that felt gross and unsuccessful and terrible. it was about a day, in which i felt defeated and like people are mean. it was a bad day. it was a stupid day.

sometimes you get to feeling like you're not seen. like you're on your own. like you just want someone to help you, lest you completely fall apart.

dear bayshore david, you saved my day. it's not about money. thank you for making time for me. thank you for knowing how to do something i couldn't quite do. thank you for your gesture, which restored my tuesday's dwindling faith in humanity. thank you for doing something for which you received no actual compensation or reward. thank you for being a human being. thank you for seeing me as a human being. thank you for doing something simple and kind.

thank you for kindness that reminds me to be kind in return.

it is such a good, important, easy reminder. kindness begets kindness begets kindness. i got caught up in the ugliness of everyone else's day. i should remember to be the kindness to start with. and i will. i will remember to start with kindness. thank you, bayshore david, for the reminder.

"who's the boy i love?"

i recently realized i spend a lot of time talking about how sad i am to move. how much i'm leaving behind. how scared i am. how many tears i'm swimming around in.

this is all true.

but i am also THRILLED. because i am going to be with this boy:

this is nic. nic is my boyfriend. nic is the boy i love so much i think my mouth will tear off my face from smiling so big. nic is the boy, who makes me feel funny and smart and naturally beautiful and comfortable and calm.

this photo is from the second day we ever spent together. we ate chinese food and i ordered mu shu pork. when said mu shu pork arrived, i realized that it is essentially a heaping plate of cabbage. aka a pile of shredded sulfur. i looked at him and said something to the effect of this may have been a bad choice. we laughed. (as it turned out, i was right.)

there are many ways to become comfortable fast and, for the simple reason that nic is nic, i was immediately comfortable with him. i basically decided i loved him without ever having met him, set about manifesting my love, tricked him into loving me, and now am rapidly descending upon him in his hometown.

it has also come to my attention that many people don't know how or why i acquired a kentucky boyfriend. for them and for all posterity, i will commit the words to writing here.

about a year and a half ago, my dear friend was dating a boy. that boy went to pilot school with nic. that boy and dear friend said, you should totally meet our friend. i realized a long time ago that, despite people's best intentions, i never want to meet their friends that i should totally meet. they are nice people with whom i am incompatible and then feel awkwardly required to romantically entertain, because i am too nice/ wishy washy/ unassertive to reject them. nic lived in new york at the time, so it was easy to pretend the set up was a good idea without ever having to meet him.

being children of a digital age, at some juncture in our prescribed non-existent courtship, we became friends on facebook. social media affirmed that nic is very attractive, which gave him an edge on all of my other potential suitors. i looked through his pictures and ever so occasionally, he would send me a song and we'd exchange a few words.

some ten months later, it was january 1st of this year. i was a bed ball of pizza/ doughnut/ beer/ love hangover after my best friend's wedding (the nuptials of my actual best friend, not the movie), and i was trolling facebook for the pictures of mistakes other people had made the previous night, when nic sent me a message. i almost came to your city for new years.

apparently he'd tried to get on a standby flight to san francisco to come see our mutual friend. the skies had denied him and he went home.

having nothing better to do, we chatted online for the better part of two or three hours. an actual exchange revealed that nic was funny, smart and a normal human being. someone that i could talk to and understand easily. this becomes increasingly rare as i get older.

this interaction combined with his obvious adorable face led me to start thinking about him more. one night i was out with my friend, val, and found some cursory way to incorporate him into conversation. i had a crush. and, just like any good crushor, i wanted to talk about my crushee as casually and frequently as possible. we came home late from our shenanigans and looked at pictures of his face online. while we were deep in the recesses of his photos, i was gushing over some particular picture. val instructed me to "like" it. i said no, because that would mean he'd know i was stalking him. 

(i sound like a teenager! i am basically a teenager. for the non-facebook inclined, all you need to know is, by marking this photo with my "like," nic would simply know that i was intentionally looking at pictures of him late at night. obvious.)

i did it anyway. 

basically i was insisting that he notice me. and he obliged.

the next morning i had a message from him that said stalker. i laughed. we had witty exchanges.

and then it exploded. we exploded. facebook exhanges turned into texting all day. day texting turned into texting all day every day for two weeks. texting turned into me finally calling him, uninvited, quite late one night. late night phone call turned into more frequent phone calls. phone calls turned into long phone calls.

one day i talked to nic for six hours. it was a sunday and i hadn't eaten or showered or left the house. we ended up on the phone and before i knew what was happening it was dark. it was 10 pm. i still hadn't eaten or showered or left the house. i hadn't moved; my body hadn't asked for anything except to hear him. i wanted to know what this person had to say. i wanted to hear his stories. to agree or disagree with him. to tell him about myself. i wanted to hear his voice. i wanted to wait for his laugh. to incite it myself. i wanted to revel in our similarities. to talk about our differences. i wanted to just keep hearing him. i wanted to know what he thought about everything.

at some point i asked, who do you tell when you're happy?

i wanted to know who that person was. the person he turned to. he responded, no one. and then, my sisters, i guess.

we talked about things people talk about when they want to know each other.

this kind of communication spanned, in all, about a month. i had basically already decided i needed to marry nic. nic, upon later revealings, was not arranging our future together, but sometimes boys take a little longer to figure things out. i pouted about not seeing real life him; he dissuaded my hopes and efforts by noting the sheer number of doors between us, until finally, one day, he conceded and bought a ticket to see me/ mutual friend.

a few days before he came, it was his birthday. he was having a good time at a dinner party, and he texted me to tell me about it.

i'm happy and i'm telling you.

this was more or less the beginning of the end for me. here is a boy, who makes connections. here is a boy, who's willing to open himself up. here's a boy, who wants to tell me when he's happy.

the plan was to stay with mutual friend and visit with me as well.

that did not happen.

i picked nic up from the airport and confirmed that he was the boy i wanted. he dropped his bags, twirled me to take a look at me, and hugged me tight. i was done.  he would not be staying with mutual friend. i would keep him.

a day and a half later, i ate all the cabbage. and about one day after that, i told nic i loved him.

i did not know if he would love me back, but i did know that, even if he didn't, he would still keep my heart safe, talk to me kindly, and not shrivel in fear. i met a man, who could hold up my wild and saturated heart. (it turns out he loved me too. success!)

none of this is typically me. despite being a girl with an exploding heart, i have traditionally being very, very reserved and weird and unwilling when it comes to relationships. though i've wanted for many years to hurtle my heart into loving someone, i never came close to finding a person with whom i could comfortably allow it.

but then i saw that face and suddenly i was the girl, who was rapidly making plans for a future together,and blurting out immediate confessions of love. he stayed for a week and we decided we had no idea how to make it work, but we would be exclusive.

to restrict this story to only half a lifetime instead of an entire one, i will edit out each of the million, endearing, wonderful things he did/ said/ showed me in the course of the ensuing months, but suffice it to say that this was clearly my person. (burlap-wrapped flowers delivered by bike messenger at work? a package with polished red rain boots and his favorite book? all the best words? ALL THE BEST WORDS?) i visited nic in kentucky. he came back and stayed for two months in san francisco. and now i am moving to kentucky.

that's that.

now his face looks like this:

he shaved his beard and finished his potsticker. this will denote the passage of time, which has been filled with my ever-growing love. in the time from that cabbage ingestion to my now imminent departure to louisville, about five months have passed. just five little months.

i know i'm leaving a lot here. i know i am scared shitless. i know i don't have a job or a settled place to live or any idea of what it will be like to live in another state. i know i'll miss my friends and i'll be sad to miss watching all my newest baby people grow day by day. i know it will be an adjustment and it will be hard at times and probably now and again i'll ask myself, what on earth have i done?

but i also positively, totally, certifiably know that there is no way i could not do this. because i want to be with this man. i want to see what unfolds. i want to sit next to him while he studies and i want to clean up his hair and toothpaste from the sink. i want to come home to his face. i want our skin to touch in the night. i want to talk about what we're going to make for dinner. i want to be tired of making dinner and order pizza. i want to go for a run. i want to paint walls and hold hands and worry about money and sweep the floor and get sick and do the laundry. i want it to be tuesday. i want it to be sunday night or wednesday morning. i want it to be any day of the week; i want it to be any old thing that a person would do. i want it to be the most unmiraculous moment in existence and i want to spend it with him. i want to do it with a man named nicholas kaniasty, whom i immediately and voraciously loved.

nic is the boy. he's funny. he laughs at his own jokes, which, to me, makes him even funnier. he holds my hand and plays with my hair. he makes me oatmeal and coffee every morning. he says what he thinks. he thinks about things. he's blunt and he's right and when he's not right, he admits that he's wrong. he's gregarious. he gesticulates. he'll sing a song for any old thing. he makes every baby smile. he loves my mom. he'll draw the most perfect picture for a sick boy that i love. he lets me cry. he calls me silly names and he remembers important things and he uses the best words. he has the most handsome face. he wants big and amazing things. he believes i am also big and amazing things. he sees the very best version of me. he is easy to be with. he'll go for a run and pick out some fruit at farmer's market and share a sandwich in the sun. he leaves flowers in the car. he is the boy. he is my boy.

this is a blog about moving for a boy. this is a blog about the boy that makes me the happiest, wildest, bravest girl on the planet. this is a blog about me being the luckiest girl for finding this boy all the way across the country and getting to choose him. this is a blog about me and the boy.

"oh man. it's real."

those were the words in response to the two word text i sent the boy that said, i'm packed.


yes, finished packing, 2 weeks early. as in, every plate, piece of silverware, sock scrap, pillow, and expired bottle of dayquil that i have deemed still useable has been wrapped, boxed, sealed, and labeled. i am left with access only to my grandmother's pristine cherry red suitcase with its fading gold MSL monogram, which carry the temporary life necessities.

or the things that make me comfortable, rather. (hi bear! we're going on an adventure!)


i was in such a torrent to do it, to begin, that suddenly i was finished and then i stood there and said to myself, what now?

now it's just waiting. now it's real.

i wondered why i began so early. sometimes i worry i'm rushing too much. that i make too many plans, so many plans, that i can't enjoy where i am. i can't unfold in a way that's organic, but rather become this automaton shifting between scheduled social engagements on my google calendar.

i stand in my room that was once so many colorful and silly representations of myself and the things that i love, which is now just piles of boxes with hastily-written labels. i thought about being a kid. i thought about the days i was so panicked about school, so ready to be there in the morning, that i tried to sleep in my clothes. i would put on my outfit-- even then, always a dress-- and slide atop the sheet and blanket and lie overly still beneath that floral comforter, which mirrored my sister's twin one to my left.

i kept my arms tucked under the covers, which, in retrospect, was a dead giveaway. i was never an arms-under-the-comforter kind of girl. it was too hot and restrictive and even then i slept just the same as i live-- wild and hot and never without movement. i have always been an arms-out kind of girl.

and then kate would tell on me. beth is wearing her school clothes.

god it made me mad. it made me fucking furious.  (sorry kate! those are strong words. i love you. i'm not mad at you anymore.) 

i just wanted to be ready for school. i wanted to wake up and leap out of bed and be ready. i wanted to be ready for the next thing. i wanted to not be late. i wanted to be where i was going next.

i have always struggled to find the balance between foresight and preparation, and simply being present in the moment. how do you look where you're going, but also notice where you are? how do you stay aware of what's ahead of you, but also not trip on the thing right beneath you?

where am i now?

this is where i am. i'm on my bed in a room that's filled with things. now they are just things. they are things in boxes with labels. fabric and wood and cardboard and plastic and ink. they are an organized amalgamation of things that are both me and entirely absent of me. any portion of them could not make it to my destination and i would probably never miss them. 

this morning i sat and drank a cup of coffee in the first place the boy and i ever shared a coffee, a piece of toast, and the feeling of first morning together-- of everyday life. i sat even though i'm going to santa barbara today and it's my first instinct to leave as early and hurriedly as possible.

i sat and nothing miraculous or terrible happened. i drank a cup of ethiopian in honor of my love. willie nelson played on the radio. a baby waved at me, while waiting in line, and i told her how wonderful it is to be naturally exuberant without caffeine. i looked at the cars driving down divisadero. i wrote some words on a piece of paper. i was, for one very small moment, amidst all the commotion of this particular time and my life and my person in general, still and alone and not going anywhere. i felt all the feelings whirling around inside me, bouncing off the walls of my skin, threatening to spill out, and i told myself, be calm. be where you are.

a tiny piece of life happened. i waited and i will still get home. the miles will pass between san francisco and santa barbara and my parents will still love me and it will still become friday and i will have what i need and in ten small days, i will still get in the cupcake truck and move to louisville.

my terror has subsided and turned mostly into thrill and exhilaration and impatience. but i will try to take these ten days-- my whole life, rather-- and be always and exactly only where i am. i will think about where i'm going without losing where i am. i will anticipate what's to come without forgetting what is. i will be beth, who is now. beth amongst the boxes. beth in between. beth in love.