a home.

I am so capable of feeling frazzled. And I rarely give myself grace to let that be okay. Together I must feel. Stress-ed not am I. Regardless of the circumstances surrounding me. Balanced I must be. Everything is under control. I'm fine. I AM fine. I AM FINE I SAID!

Tada. Enter nervous breakdown. Or maybe not quite nervous breakdown, in the clinical sense. But, rather, semi-tragic emotional breakdown in the kitchen on the floor...where all the bad voices come out and trump reason and truth and logic-al-ish thinking.

Yawn. 

I moved out of my house last weekend. Or, rather, on Thanksgiving Day. The following day I worked, as I do have a job in retail, and it was Black Friday. All of my belongings that aren't absolutely necessary are in boxes in a storage unit whose manager deducted fifty dollars from my checking account just two days ago. And then I worked again, twice. And then I cleaned my old house that's no longer mine, and moved some more. And then I worked at the job in retail that I also happen to abhor. And then I came dangerously close to one of those emotional breakdowns I mentioned before. Thank God for uninterrupted mornings, and for this cup of orange ginger tea I sit here, sipping. 

I had one of these disastrous jobs last year during this very same time of year. Good things came from it, but the job itself I had little but feelings of disdain for. I told myself I felt that way because of the amount of hours I was working. "Too much!", I said to myself. Must take a day off. The result? Never work on Sundays. Ever. So here I find myself, with two jobs, one in retail. I have Sundays off, and am rarely ever required to work more than forty hours a week, and guess what? I still hate it. I hate selling things to people, especially expensive things that are, in my humble opinion, often (tough not always) a waste of one's money. 

The night I drove home for the last time, I cried. They were deep, gut wrenching tears. I cried because of what I was saying good-bye to. I am not usually extremely nostalgic when it comes to things. Just ask my roommate Tonia, who watched me discard a good portion of my belongings during the move out process. But the house on Evanston was more than a belonging to me. It represented a choice to step out of expectation and obligation and create the kind of life I had been wanting for some time, full of people and good food and reading corners and porches good for sitting. And that choice to live in that lovely old house made room in my head for other choices...important...inside altering...life shifting...difficult and seemingly selfish-though-not-quite-so choices. The house was the setting for the beginning of many inside altering...life shifting friendships. The kitchen the creative space for memorable meals and brownies, brownies, brownies. While I was crying, the song "Welcome Home"...(I think by Radical Face) played as my evening's soundtrack. It was a happen to, not a meant to. 

And. 

I remembered this: That I feel most at home with the people I care about...in the presence of accepting company...people that get what's great about the other people they are around. And so I cried a little more, those gutteral happy tears. I said good-bye to the house on Evanston...because...though I will always relate to that house this year of change, the beginnings of rich friendships, and many batches of brownies, the goodness inside of that goodness does not reside in the houses' walls.

With that, good night. I will be sleeping on a brown leather couch in a a high ceilinged, light green walled living room in the house of a dear friend.