Sixteen.
I have lived in at least this many houses. This doesn’t count the summer my family lived in cabins and hotels, nor does it include the babyhood homes of my parents’ college days. Is it any wonder that I’m addicted to change and feel my nerves fraying after three years time with the desperate plea raising from my gut to leave, to be in a new place.
Yesterday I moved out the last of my gar-bage from my living room room in Hartford. That was probably the part I hated most about being an AmeriCorps member, that I lacked the money to live in an actual bedroom with a real bed and furniture for nearly two years. Not that I always minded. Through my nomadic childhood/collegehood, I grew quite accustomed to sleeping on couches, leaning against car windows, under the billowing sheets of my constructed forts, in tents in the Colorado wild, etc. etc. It was simply the principle of not being able to choose where I slept that frustrated me. The fact that in my poverty I couldn’t even afford to hire a moving van to move all my crap. Instead, I spent an entire day exactly one year ago moving all of my items by hand from one Hartford apartment to another.
Now, I’m in a brand new place, living with my incredible boyfriend in a gorgeous neighborhood in New Haven. We have a real bed, art on the walls, furniture, and an awe-inspiring view of East Rock from our 5thfloor apartment.
I feel like I’m actually becoming an adult.
I’ve graduated from college, I have to pay bills and taxes, I’m almost done being an Americorps member, I have friends who are getting married and family members who are having babies… and though at times I feel like I’m treading through mud, I can choose to mold my sphere of this beautiful world into whatever I deem fit.
I want to create a home with my boyfriend. I want to buy canvases and paint pictures to hang on our walls, pictures that only we may believe to be “masterpieces”.
I want to get a kitten with him (of course I’m more of a puppy lover, but I’d rather us wait to get our Finnish Lapphund until we move out West) and give it loving space to play.
I want to begin training to be a doula and midwife. I know that some of my family members are struggling a bit with this one right now, but bringing life into the world is commendable. It’s something that is always needed in this country and abroad and incorporates women’s and children’s issues, international issues, nutrition, and holistic health. My boyfriend and I eventually want to open up a center that will incorporate yoga, reiki, nutrition, meditation, natural haircoloring and tattoos, and midwivery. This would be one component of my contribution.
I want to go back to school and study the way cooperatives use folk art. When I traveled to Haiti in May, I was able to visit a couple of artisan groups and this has encouraged me to pursue this track.
I want to get back into my writing and crafting. This is often a sliver of myself that I’ve let fall by the wayside, but it’s something that’s integral to my being and that I need to devote more time to.
It’s a new month, a new time to begin, a new location, and it is time… time to continue pursuing my passions, time to add beauty to my world, and time to welcome in the person I am becoming.
