You just pick a day in time and I'm in/a new destination

I wrote an essay for a friend's website that'll be up soon about some of the music I started listening to when I first moved to New York, and found myself listening to Live City Sounds by Mary Lou Lord and vaguely recalled this post, which feels like a lifetime ago. I don't think even then I could have imagined all the places this year would take me, and not just on planes. I'm sitting in the complete quiet, the only sound coming from my laptop, in my second home. You don't get this kind of quiet in New York City. At first I thought it was too much quiet; it haunted me, felt unnatural, unnerving.

But slowly, through many days of sitting and sleeping and taking baths and cooking and kissing and watching game shows here, of having my own closet that is now neatly arranged by my boyfriend, it's come to be my home just as much, if not more so, than the place where I send my rent checks every month. And maybe by having that stability, I've been able to go so many places, to dream of new places to go. I looked up the list I'd made of all 50 states and counted up the ones where I've eaten cupcakes, and found that I've gotten up to 22, and while I do want to get to all 50, it's not just about the numbers. It's about the connection. I like being able to talk to someone and say, "Oh yeah, I got a tattoo in that city, or I ate at that restaurant, or saw a show." I like feeling like I don't have to be tied down to any one spot, that there are an infinite number of adventures waiting for me.

Sometimes, yes, it's disorienting. I not only don't know where I am, I don't know where I want to be. But that girl who pushed everyone away, who sought out the most unavailable people over and over again? I think I left her behind, at an airport, maybe, on a bus, on a train, in my journals. I have a date in 2013 for Catalyst, and for all sorts of things. I have all these possibilities dangling right in front of me, ones that would make me giddy if they come through, but also, right here, in this quiet space, I know that I can always make more dreams, especially with someone who is more supportive of my dreams, as outlandish and ridiculous as they may sometimes be, than I could ever have hoped for.