Alien

I'm trying to decide-- actually, it's less of a decision and more of a calling or an invitation. Anyway, I'm trying to figure out which chair in my parents living room is going to be my chair. The one that becomes my default, the one that I start to assign feelings to and start to think of more like a living thing in the same way I used to with my dolls as a kid, the one that when my parents move to a new house, I think back at this living room and picture myself sitting in that chair.

Right now I'm sitting on the couch, but to be honest, it leaves a bit to be desired. It's a blue couch and perfectly comfortable, but it's lacking in some way that I can't quite determine. Maybe I just haven't taken enough naps on it yet to bond properly.


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It's hard to deny the fact that this part of my life is an obvious shift from the past and let's just go ahead and embrace that cliche and call this a new chapter. Of my life. Of this blog. Of myself. So, I'm going to try and hit all of the major points, if not for you, for myself as a record of how things went:


Two weeks ago, I moved back to California and into one of my parents guest rooms from my summer in Philadelphia as an intern at Anthropologie. Earlier this summer, they offered me a job as an assistant designer. I turned it down. Philadelphia was nice and the chocolate chip cookies at the corporate cafe of the URBN headquarters were enough to make me rethink my entire life plans and all of my morals, but something in me felt strongly about coming back to California. For what? I didn't know. (Let's be clear: I don't know.) (Let's be clearer: The last few days I've wondered more often than I'd like to admit if I've made a huge mistake.)

I'd moved to Philadelphia from four years of college in Savannah, Georgia. But now I'm in Costa Mesa, and one of the walls in the guest room is covered in yellow floral wallpaper. For the last few days, I have been unpacking boxes of my life in college, which I suppose could also be considered the only adult life I've known, into the room with the wallpaper dividing everything into four piles: keep, give, store, toss. It was surprising and uncomfortable how many things that in Georgia were a given to make the effort to hold onto and ship across the country just don't make sense here and ended up in the toss pile. Then there are the things that are truly important to me. Pictures that I want to see every day. Sewing supplies that I use as often as I can. Where, in my parents home of bachelor pad style empty-nesterness does that all belong? Even my clothes feel different. I stood with my arms crossed, looking at all of them hanging in the closet and it threw me. Is that who I am? All of this color? And pattern? And dresses? My "all time favorites"? It doesn't feel like me. Or what I think of as me.

Today, I filled up my car with gas. I punched in my zip code. 31401. Savannah, Georgia. Which I guess is my way of saying that Georgia is where, as of this moment, I still find my default chair.

Worth mentioning:

Money. It sucks to not have any. No matter where you live.
Friends. I have them here, but it's different. They haven't spent the last four years with their lives on time-out waiting for me to come back, but this isn't Christmas break where we get to have dinner and talk all about life and gossip about people we used to be close with and then pay the bill and see each other the next year. I'm here to weasel my way in now. To establish myself as someone they call. And someone I call. And we go on walks where we can talk about life and not have to give months of back story because ideally, they'll know it already. Because we've lived it with together.
Friends Part II. I have them there. On my old default chair in Savannah as well as in places where they are adjusting and meeting new friends and making new lives too. I miss them. These people know me. They really, really know me and who I am. And I know how they each like their coffee and they all know how I like to talk about myself a lot.
Friends Part Ib. If you're my friend and you live in Orange County and you're reading this, please don't read too much into this and let this offend you, but I would say that I have about 5 good friends in Orange County and 4 of them have or are about to have children. I wonder what this says about me. (PS- all of your children are glorious and no, I did not mind holding her in the cry room, in fact, I really, really loved it.)
Streets. Is everything in Orange County somehow off of Bristol? And why can't I ever remember the difference between Bristol, Bear, and Baker?

Tomorrow, I start an internship with a stylist in West Hollywood. Internship numero six. The future is about as blank as it possibly could be and with all of the adjustments, something about this time of life is already so sweet and so wonderful and challenging in the exact way I wanted it to be. I'm digging in. I'm excited. This is where I'm supposed to be. A time of learning and relearning.