Dear Internet,
This month marks the halfway point in my internship and the beginning of my existential crisis.
When I packed up and moved across the country to live in the back of a yoga studio I never expected to love it. I thought I'd do my time. Learn some things about running a business. Get some experience teaching yoga. And let my mind reset from two long years of intense graduate school work. Then I'd move back east and get on with my life. Like a normal adult person.
But no. I had to go and fall in love with this place. Not to mention find someone who I like more and more each day.
Which presents a problem. A big glaring one the post office hammered home when I updated my forwarding address information earlier this week. "Do you ever plan on living at your old address again?"
Do I ever plan on living at my old address again? Ha. Why not just ask me how much I weigh? Or what my political beliefs are. Or what color underwear I'm wearing. At least those, while personal, I could answer.
But that one. The one about where I'm going to live. How exactly do I answer that Internet? Because well maybe, who knows, it depends on...doesn't exactly fit into the yes or no box I had to check. Much like most of my life really. Except what I currently own. I could probably get that into a box.
But this. What I'm doing. Where I'm going to live? Who I'm going to live with? If I'm moving back home? If I ever plan on living at my old address again. How I'm going to make a living. Not really yes/no box material anymore.
What I do isn't neat and tidy. I don't punch in at 9 and out at 5. I have many boxes that I juggle on any given day. Daughter. Friend. Employee. Yoga Teacher. Counselor. Intern. Blogger. Figure drawing model. Girlfriend. Skier. Really terrible broomball player.
This isn't third grade anymore. I can't just check a box and hold hands at recess. Relationships. Jobs. Life. Isn't as easy. There are consequences to your checks and I's dotted with hearts.
Boxes now have meaning and weight. Sometimes they are hard to hold. They're heavy (Student Loan Ower, Broke Intern) and you'd like to huck them off the side of a cliff and never see them again (Student Loan Ower, Broke Intern).
Other times you have so many boxes checked you have to go to bed and start over in the morning because you can't hold them all (Intern, Personal Assistant, Counselor, Girlfriend, Sane Person).
But then sometimes you don't have enough. And those boxes you want to check (Successful, Financially Secure) seem just out of reach and you wake up anxious about how you're going to pull everything off this month. How you're going to pay for your gluten free, vegan soup AND mortgage.
Others are so easy they help lighten your load (Girlfriend, Friend) until they do something annoying like dye their hair or don't return your calls.
But none of them are simple. Are yes/no and forget about it. They all take work. They all have repercussions. And your checking them or not can hurt.
And I'm not ready for that particular hurt. So, I let that yes/no where are you going to live box hang over my head. Let my mail be on temporary forward. Let what my permanent life looks like be on hold.
Because I honestly don't know what to do. Which box to check.
Yet.
And I have plenty of others to tend to (Intern, Personal Assistant, Counselor, Girlfriend, Friend, Daughter, Sane Person).
XO,
Sara
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