to beth, on her 31st birthday

somewhere in the course of the last decade, i made a sort of arbitrary promise/ prophesy that at 32, i would be at my peak. which is not to say that anything after would be a decline, but rather, that i would reach total excellence and simply coast along, blissfully immersed in my own awesomeness.

i said it mostly in jest, much like i often talk about how i say silly life actions define me as, finally, a woman. yet still the idea has stuck with me. my own humorous promise echoes in my head: 32 will mean something. it will be some birthday of reckoning.

inexplicably, i am now only one year away from this promised peak. it used to seem so far away.

tomorrow i am 31. tomorrow i am one year away from the peak.

i tell nic and he says, without hesitation, that i'll be pregnant at 32. that that's what peaking will look like for me. not the successful career and a fit body and the hopefully less lopsided face, but being swollen with baby. i can so easily see myself, padding around in the heat with a baby in my belly, ready to finally care for and love my own little creature instead of always someone else's. i can see it. i like it.

i can also guarantee that when i developed my peak prophesy at 22 or 23,  i definitely did not imagine a pregnancy peak.

this is what i am slow in coming to.

to beth, on her 31st birthday,

life is not what you expected.

there's no way i could have imagined this. 

let me be clear: i'm not pregnant, nor am i planning on/ working towards/ trying to coerce nic or myself into any sort of future pregnancy (for now). all i am saying is, really, truly, life is not what i expected.

and i am so gloriously, wondrously thrilled by that realization. i am so grateful for the picture of a pregnant birthday as a beautiful one. that something so filled with responsibility and weight could seem like the best possible thing. 

i'm grateful that playing cards and a shared beer is as satisfying to me as my previous wild nights out. i'm grateful that saturday can look like painting the shutters for the third time and pulling humidity-loving wild mushrooms out of the mulch. i'm grateful for cold homemade onion rings on a too small table with sisters on the front lawn. i'm grateful for after dinner walks through the neighborhood and good coffee as our indulgence. i'm grateful for a boy, who sleepily pulls me back into bed for second snugs in the morning, even when touching skin is almost too hot to bear. i'm grateful that a newly fixed fan and a bright planter box of flowers are the best gifts. 

i'm grateful for things that aren't working, for this new place that's making me assert who i am, what i want, and what i believe. i'm grateful for people that make me work. i'm grateful when i fall in yoga, when my body's sore, when i don't have enough time to get things done, when i have to wait a little longer than i wanted. i'm grateful that i get frustrated regularly and have to find ways to change my perspective, because no one is going to fix things for me. i'm grateful for things that are messy and hard.

because it is all teaching me to just be where i am and love what is.

i believe that peaking might look like being happy with exactly where i am on may 30, 2016. precisely wherever, however beth loster is at that particular moment. that the peak looks much less like physical, environmental, or emotional perfection, but rather the confidence that imperfection is just as acceptable. that where i am is right, because it's where i am.

i am eking towards it now. i'm doing the work.

it feels good to work.

i get tired. i slip in and out of my direction, my confidence, my grace.

but i'm moving in the right direction.

i am moving in the direction of what might appear to be mundane, but what feels much more like strength, stability, surety. 

it is the antithesis of the on the road mentality. i am not mad. i am not mad to live, mad to breathe. i am finally descending from the madness and finding the rhythm. i am abandoning the chaos that has defined me for so many years and slowing down.

i am slowing down.

i am slowing down.

i'm peaking.

i am letting myself find a peak by stabilizing my base, by starting at my roots, by giving myself a place from which to grow. i am beginning to feel, for the first time, like my feet are on the ground. what a wonderful gift to myself.

happy birthday to me.

"most people have no idea how good their body is designed to feel."

nic and i are coming to the end of a month without refined sugar or alcohol.

i also made a promise to myself to eat (for the most part (my tiny realistic caveat for myself)) things that occur in nature. i didn't want to omit fruit or oil or nut butter or other things i deem delicious and necessary for life, but i simply wanted to eat things that exist in the actual world. preferably single ingredient things, but at the very least food with ingredients i recognized as food items. no maladextrose number 259.

[image 1: trip one of 87129 to the grocery store this month, 

plus a visual of my life savings, before ingestion]

several people, who knew i was embarking on such a sadly daunting (for me) adventure, have repeatedly asked me throughout the month a. if i am still on the wagon and then, subsequent to my yes answer, b. if i feel nonstop incredibly amazing.

i definitely wish i felt nonstop incredibly amazing. that i could aver that removing those two very toxic elements from my life had dramatically altered both my body and well-being. and, while i'm positive they have from a health standpoint, i don't feel or look so amazingly different.

now that i've said that, i realize it's basically not true. i have, for the first time since i can remember (it has surely been more than ten years) slept through a handful of nights, without waking up to pee, readjust my pillows, blow my nose, fish around for ear plugs, sleep eat or do any of the other weird, neurotic things i've been known to do at night. i do feel like i have more energy. i have seen changes in my body. i feel stronger. and i find a strange amount of comfort and power in saying no to things that i would have previously succumbed to.

please reference: me, eating three donuts one morning immediately upon arrival at school after eating breakfast at home.

so yes, i do feel different. but i don't feel like some pinnacle of vibrancy and health.

but the good news is, i'm trying and that, in itself, feels best. i am trying to take care of myself instead of asserting how impossible it is to take care of myself. 

i am struggling to not obsess over the number on the scale, because if i'm running every day, not eating too much and eating healthy foods, going to the gym or workout classes regularly, and generally winning at life then WHY AM I NOT A MODEL?

yes. i'm working on letting that go.

i'm working on taking care of myself for the sake of taking care of myself and living a happy, healthy life. i've been waking up early to meditate, drinking tea, stretching, slowing down, eating with deliberateness and awareness and doing all the crunchy, hippie things that once upon a time made me nauseous to even hear.

which leads me to the second item i've been asked, which is if i plan on drinking and eating sugar once the month is over.

i am certainly not planning on staying up til 12 am, february 1st, so i can guzzle bourbon and crush some cake. i will likely drink a beer on superbowl sunday and, more likely than not, it will not make me feel amazing. or maybe it will and i will wonder why i ever for a moment stopped ingesting the pure bliss that is craft beer. 

i will always love beer. i will always love sugar.

because they taste amazing.

i will definitely eat a donut again and i will definitely drink a beer again.

but what i'm ever so sloooowly approaching is the realization that things that are momentarily gratifying are not always worth it. which i, of course, knew, but am just now beginning to grasp in reality rather than just in theory.

i won't be able to abstain for a month, achieve a perfect body and mind (which i am soooooooooooooooooooooo far from anyway), and then revert to old ways.

the last two days, i went to a training for school. we were learning about a program that uses physical exercises to activate children's vestibular sense. aka the inner ear. this woman started out as a reading specialist and realized children were struggling, because their eyes and ears were not working to process information in a way that even made it possible to read. their eyes weren't focusing; their auditory input was all wrong; they couldn't even begin to process information efficiently enough to make sense of anything on a page.

she basically said we're not making our kids work hard enough. we cart them around and strap them into 8000% security items that don't allow their bodies to move an inch and then plop them in front of tvs and ipads. they're doing plenty of looking around, but their bodies aren't connecting what they see with motor skills and everything's ending up a disorganized, sloppy mess. 

so she's created a series of physical exercises to challenge their bodies, stimulate and build strength in the inner ear, and in turn unleash an amazing ability to process information that leads to better academic, social, and behavioral performance.

this is all semi-extraneous information, which i'm mostly sharing because it was interesting. but i'm thinking about it, because many people in the training asked, how long do they have to do it until they're better? 

as in, when can they stop?

as in, how long do we have to exercise until we're fixed?

which was ludicrous to me. because i realize it's not sustainable to have a kid doing a jelly roll on the floor, then cross lateral knee touches, then a bean bag toss, then a balance beam every day of their life so they can continue to excel at reading, but the idea, the action of keeping your body in motion to maintain physical and mental health-- that doesn't have an expiration. you can't do it and then you're fixed.

you have to work and work and work and work and work and work and work and then you die. 

you never get to stop working.

you have to constantly take care of yourself.

this is what's amazing to me. this is what i think i am just finally arriving at, at age 30, end of january, almost six months into living in kentucky.

i have to take care of myself. i am the ONLY person that is going to take care of me.

people can love the shit out of me. they can support me and hug me and encourage me and stand beside me and write me beautiful letters and tell me beautiful things and give me everything i ever wanted, but at the end of the day, it's my mouth chewing up the food, and my legs choosing to sit down or keep climbing.

i cannot lament, complain, rationalize, excuse, or love my way into health or out of the responsibility for it.

i can sneak snacks when no one's looking and it doesn't make me healthy. i can tag myself at 24 hour fitness seven days a week and it doesn't make me healthy. i can begrudge people, who get what i think i deserved, envy people, who look how i'd like to look, condemn people, who live in ways that i deem improper, complain about all the things that are keeping me from living the kind of life i might even begin to find satisfying, but it will fix absolutely fucking nothing.

my life is a choice. i am the only one, who makes the choices. and i have got to choose for it to be good.

i have got to wake up early to sit and think about what i'm grateful for for fifteen minutes. i've got to pause for a cup of tea for a minute instead of rushing to look at my phone. i've got to pack a lunch the night before, so i don't cram cheez-its and diet coke in my mouth when i'm crumbling from hunger at school. i've got to spend money on real food. i've got to run or walk outside on my lunch instead of sitting in the break room, griping about what's wrong. i've got to go to the gym, when i just want to put on sweatpants and watch tv. i've got to keep pushing. i've got to say thank you for what i am and have and can become. i've got to try and try and try and work and work and work and then i'll die and it will have been the best life.

i am the only person, who can take care of me. that is true for my body and my heart and my soul's health.

i think i actually just realized that today, which is why i'm writing all these words.

i am entirely responsible for myself.

I AM ENTIRELY RESPONSIBLE FOR MYSELF.

it took me thirty and a half years to realize it.

shit.

here goes nothing.

write me something.

every year for Christmas, my dad asks me for the same thing. 

write me something, he says.

this year, despite always knowing what the answer will be, i asked, and he responded, write about moving to kentucky.

i'm flattered, always, that he asks. that his favorite gift could simply be just the words from my head. but there's also a selfish twinge of wishing he'd ask for something easier. that instead of the time and energy of words, he'd ask for a book. or tongs for the grill. or a pine candle. something i can order off amazon, the lazy voice in my head requests.

but that's not what christmas is. it's not an exchange of internet orders in vaguely comparable amounts. when i can, i like to buy things local, thoughtful, so overly relevant and perfect that sometimes it nearly becomes impossible. so i hush that lazy voice and thank my dad for wanting the things that take time and effort and love.

this year has taken effort and love. louisville has taken effort and love. i mean that in the best way. i needed it. i needed to try. needed to do something other than drifting along in the amalgamation of things that had developed into a good, but ultimately unsatisfying life over the last 12 years in the bay area. i needed deliberateness. i needed to chose. and i did it.

i'm not sure how to describe it, if it's even really possible to write about the move as a whole. i've still barely realized it's true. now, almost six months later, i have moments where i say to myself, i live in kentucky. and i laugh.

and i laugh and i laugh. 

it's both strange and wonderful how quickly you can choose a new life. it's new. it's also very the same.

let me first clear this up. louisville is wonderful. louisville is a big, busy, colorful, changing, dynamic city. i do not live on a farm. all people know seem to know about kentucky (myself included really, before i came here) is the derby and fried chicken and bourbon. i said i was moving and most people just said, fried chicken?

not even a complete question. they'd just look at me blankly and utter those two words, as if offering something vaguely contextual might start the conversation they couldn't even think how to begin. that was their only understanding of kentucky as a state. why would someone move there?

i can't say much for kentucky as a whole, because i honestly haven't seen it, but louisville is awesome. it is many of the things i love about san francisco, but in the process of becoming. it's music and carefully crafted food and beer and coffee. it has tons of museums, sweet little shops filled with handmade treasures, and the best chocolate chip cookie i've ever eaten. it has people with ideas; parking lots turned into a weekend event space with food trucks and outdoor movies, free weekly concerts at the waterfront during summer, festival after festival, the best antique shops and flea markets, magbooth and its free photo strips. it has beautiful old buildings aside sprawling, opulent homes. it has quaint little shotgun houses and an abundance of porch swings. it is filled with greenery and color and life. 

it also has extended strips of unused buildings. dilapidated areas that are creepy and unkempt. it's waiting though. not declining, but rather it's slowly becoming. instead of acupuncture clinics on every corner, there are a few. instead of locally roasted coffee every step, they're few and far between. the profusion of fast food is unmatched by the food scene's curated, sustainable counterpart. it is, truthfully, more of what i typically reject than more of what i love. there's a lot of fast food and styrofoam and waste. but it's changing. and i value that. it's not saturated yet.  if you want to start a store or a restaurant or a practice, you can. there's space and resources to become.

louisville and i are a lot alike in that way then. we're both unfolding. we're taking the space to develop into something wonderful. we're not yet done.

there's also this boy i love. 

it's wonderful. it's hard.

i love the shit out of him. we are taking our time, learning how to be together in the day-to-day. to sort out the bills and the chores. the routines. the expectations.

we sometimes have this very sobering and seemingly unromantic conversation, where we say to each other, i love you, but i could live without you.

it sounds terrible and i think many people wouldn't understand, but it's comforting somehow. it's my favorite way to have a relationship.

we're not desperate. we chose each other. we still choose each other. regularly. it's the opposite of what i was lamenting in san francisco. the routines that i had outgrown. the things that were, simply because they were before and continued to be.

nic is a constant decision. i choose him. i choose him daily. i choose him moment by moment. i look at him and think, i didn't have to do this, but i wanted to.

for once, i chose something i wanted, instead of something i felt obligated to do.

i wanted nic and i got him.

and now he's sitting here, beside me on the couch. he's reading for school and his feet are pressed up against a hot water bottle and then swaddled in a blanket. sometimes, without looking at me, he reaches for my hand and holds it for a minute. sometimes, instead of hand, i put some chopped up apple with cinnamon into his palm from the bowl at the end of the couch. i'm wearing socks and slippers and cozy pants and my clothes from the day and am sneaking heat from his hot water bottle. it's 8 o'clock. 

our life is quiet. we spend most weekends taking walks, fixing up the house, making food, binge watching netflix, playing cards, talking.

there's very little miraculous or noteworthy. i continually wait to write words down. i wait for something substantial to happen and it doesn't. i begin to write and they are the same words about how this is quieter life and i'm relishing that.

sometimes i get sad. i cry more than i should. sometimes when i get sad, i think it means i shouldn't have left san francisco. that i made a mistake somehow.

i have to consider these things. i think, if i didn't, it would mean that something was actually wrong. i think, i'm sad so i shouldn't have left.

i'm sad, i made a mistake.

but i didn't make a mistake. i'm just sad. i got sad in san francisco too. i just hadn't recently made some huge change that i could easily blame my sadness on. i got sad in san francisco, and i get sad here, and i'll get sad anywhere else i may move in life.

i feel like we spend a lot of our lives looking for the reasons we are miserable. we say, i won't be miserable when this one thing stops/ starts happening. we wait for our job to change, our situation to change, our weight to change, our hair, our partner, our backdrop, our car, our wardrobe, our financial situation to change. we are trying to wait out our misery.

but it's just our hearts and our minds. they're the ones that need to change.

so i'm working on it.

moving to louisville has given me the space to work on it and i needed that. i chose it. i knew editing my weight/ hair/ partner/ backdrop/ car/ wardrobe in san francisco was not going to create the change i knew i needed. i knew my heart and my mind needed help. i knew i could not do it there.

so now i'm here. i'm making better choices. i'm slowing down.

i moved and it seems like there should be a story to tell, but really it's just everyday life in a different background.

i moved to louisville for a change and what i got was the same girl that left six months ago. a girl in process. a girl becoming.

one of my visits home before i moved, i had a hard time. i wanted my parents to say they were happy for me, that they were glad i was going, that it was a good and right choice, that they'd visit, that they still loved me. i am the first baby to move so far away and i needed affirmation. i didn't know if it was right, even though i felt so sure i had to do it.

of course they said they loved me, of course they hugged me hard and cried a little and said they'd see me soon. but not the rest. i felt like they refused to give me the support i needed. in retrospect, i guess they probably didn't feel those things. maybe they weren't happy or sure or glad. so i cried some. a lot, actually.

and then i went anyway.

i've written so so many words. i'm spinning through a galaxy of feelings and experiences and ideas and hopes and reflections. i have not at all gotten to anything substantial.

there's a lot and there's nothing.

my dad wanted me to write about moving. clearly the above explosion of words is a much less concise way of saying: i can't. it's too much. i can't do it. i can't write about it, because i don't yet understand it. i am too close to understand it yet.

but i do know this. this what i want to say, dad. thank you for making me a girl that went anyway. thank you for making me a girl, who was brave enough to go when i was scared. who knew i'd be loved, even if you didn't love what was happening. or if you were scared too. a girl with an underlying sense of security. thank you for helping me become a girl with a good enough heart and mind to know when that heart and mind needed some serious nourishing.

thank you for keeping me moving. not my body place to place. not my job. not my wardrobe. thank you for keeping my heart moving. for keeping it fresh and healthy. thank you for making me feel always loved enough to be brave. thank you for always encouraging me to follow my heart, open my heart, and give from my heart. thank you for teaching me to be the best kind of person. 

i feel, for the first time, a little proud of the girl i am and the way i'm living my life. that's a gift you gave me. 

the gift of the possibility of a girl, who one day found her way to loving and caring for herself. what big girl dreams i am just finally beginning to realize. 

thank you so much.

some words in exchange is not too much to ask at all.

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.