Doing Something
My therapist thinks that I should move back to Minnesota. Not RIGHT NOW. But I need to be planning for it. Not in four years, but soon.
The conversation started because my parents are looking to maybe move. My dad can no longer sustain himself at his current church and two other jobs. So, he's looking for a new church. If my parents leave, there's no reason to stay anymore. Not even the promise of my graduate program is enough to sustain me.
I told her that I'd been aching for the Twin Cities recently. To assuage it, I'm planning a vacation there. The two vacation days I have left aren't nearly enough, but they're what I have. If I combine them with another holiday, say Memorial day or some such thing, perhaps it could work. I explained that this might make Erie bearable. At which point she stopped me, cocked her head, and said maybe I should use it to take stock of the job market there. Put out some feelers. I protested, stating that I still have three years left in my program. I have a solid job at an awesome agency that actually values me.
She replied that the one thing I'd said in every appointment is how much I hate Erie. How lonely I am and how much I hate hiding significant parts of myself to fit into my conservative environment. How the best I can manage is that __(insert positive point here)__ made me hate Erie less. I did try to tell her about how I've always bitched about my living situations, but she says this is different. I'm stable now, and have been since I got my job. If I still hate Erie after that, then perhaps I should listen to it.
She went further to claim that the only thing holding me back is my fear of ending up like I was. But the truth is, I'm not that person anymore. Besides, I'm exponentially better at job hunting than I was before.
I have always whined about the place I was living in since leaving my childhood home in the mountains. Freshman year of college, I wanted to be "away from this damnable flat land" and back in Franklin or Pittsburgh. Sophomore through junior years of college, it was Pittsburgh or Boston. After that, it was "anywhere but here." When I was in AmeriCorps, I dreamed of Red Wing, figuring erroneously that it would be like Franklin. Red Wing, as has been well documented, left me desperate to be back in the Twin Cities. Then something odd happened. I settled. I realized that I'd loved the Twin Cities all along. I'd just been so miserable with my mental illness that I took it out on the place I was living.
It must be understood that at no time did I ever want to go back to Erie. I went to great lengths and a horrendous amount of misery to avoid it. I have always hated Erie with a fiery, burning passion. Erie, to me, is like Duluth, if one sucks all the beauty and life out of it, leaving a husk of a city on a poisoned lake.
Since I was in high school, the most exotic thing here is Italian. It was a shock when I returned to find that an Indian restaurant had survived the Erie-ites. There is one ambiguously Asian grocer, which carries nothing. The Thai place that just opened wouldn't know real Thai food if it hit them in the face. It's not that Erie's not diverse. There are people of many nationalities in the LEP (new acronym for ESL) program at my work. I revel in the smells of their leftovers reheating in the microwave while my coworkers complain. It's just that the international community is hidden away and completely unappreciated.
I still wake up in the morning and think briefly about the things I'm going to do in Midway before I remember that I'm not there. So, I'm going to talk to the U of M to see if they'll take my transfer credits. I'll cut back on the horrific amounts I fork over to the fast food industry to squirrel money away for the move and the deposit on an apartment. Start talking to the agencies in the Twin Cities to see if any might be interested in hiring me. I've still got the rest of my lease, which is nine months. Then, we'll see where I am. Anyone that has any leads on anything, give me a holler. I'm not going to do anything rash, but I am going to do something. If a thing needs to change, then there is no use avoiding it, better to act, but with prudence.
The conversation started because my parents are looking to maybe move. My dad can no longer sustain himself at his current church and two other jobs. So, he's looking for a new church. If my parents leave, there's no reason to stay anymore. Not even the promise of my graduate program is enough to sustain me.
I told her that I'd been aching for the Twin Cities recently. To assuage it, I'm planning a vacation there. The two vacation days I have left aren't nearly enough, but they're what I have. If I combine them with another holiday, say Memorial day or some such thing, perhaps it could work. I explained that this might make Erie bearable. At which point she stopped me, cocked her head, and said maybe I should use it to take stock of the job market there. Put out some feelers. I protested, stating that I still have three years left in my program. I have a solid job at an awesome agency that actually values me.
She replied that the one thing I'd said in every appointment is how much I hate Erie. How lonely I am and how much I hate hiding significant parts of myself to fit into my conservative environment. How the best I can manage is that __(insert positive point here)__ made me hate Erie less. I did try to tell her about how I've always bitched about my living situations, but she says this is different. I'm stable now, and have been since I got my job. If I still hate Erie after that, then perhaps I should listen to it.
She went further to claim that the only thing holding me back is my fear of ending up like I was. But the truth is, I'm not that person anymore. Besides, I'm exponentially better at job hunting than I was before.
I have always whined about the place I was living in since leaving my childhood home in the mountains. Freshman year of college, I wanted to be "away from this damnable flat land" and back in Franklin or Pittsburgh. Sophomore through junior years of college, it was Pittsburgh or Boston. After that, it was "anywhere but here." When I was in AmeriCorps, I dreamed of Red Wing, figuring erroneously that it would be like Franklin. Red Wing, as has been well documented, left me desperate to be back in the Twin Cities. Then something odd happened. I settled. I realized that I'd loved the Twin Cities all along. I'd just been so miserable with my mental illness that I took it out on the place I was living.
It must be understood that at no time did I ever want to go back to Erie. I went to great lengths and a horrendous amount of misery to avoid it. I have always hated Erie with a fiery, burning passion. Erie, to me, is like Duluth, if one sucks all the beauty and life out of it, leaving a husk of a city on a poisoned lake.
Since I was in high school, the most exotic thing here is Italian. It was a shock when I returned to find that an Indian restaurant had survived the Erie-ites. There is one ambiguously Asian grocer, which carries nothing. The Thai place that just opened wouldn't know real Thai food if it hit them in the face. It's not that Erie's not diverse. There are people of many nationalities in the LEP (new acronym for ESL) program at my work. I revel in the smells of their leftovers reheating in the microwave while my coworkers complain. It's just that the international community is hidden away and completely unappreciated.
I still wake up in the morning and think briefly about the things I'm going to do in Midway before I remember that I'm not there. So, I'm going to talk to the U of M to see if they'll take my transfer credits. I'll cut back on the horrific amounts I fork over to the fast food industry to squirrel money away for the move and the deposit on an apartment. Start talking to the agencies in the Twin Cities to see if any might be interested in hiring me. I've still got the rest of my lease, which is nine months. Then, we'll see where I am. Anyone that has any leads on anything, give me a holler. I'm not going to do anything rash, but I am going to do something. If a thing needs to change, then there is no use avoiding it, better to act, but with prudence.