Changes (David Bowie not incl.)
No clever subject lines or quotes today. Just work. I had a very good day yesterday, even if I did stay up too late writing a fight scene. Well, it was really more like a crap-kicked-out-of-you scene, and it was fun, and before I realized it, it was 2 am and I had to get up and go to the airport this morning.
I'm sitting here now taking advantage of free socialist wifi in Boston, and posting progress from the day that was:
"The Curse of Four"
Bone Gods
In other news, I'm going to be getting home around midnight and that's if the hell that is SeaTac disgorges my bag in a timely manner so I can catch the 10:47 light rail train. There's a lot to do this weekend/week when I get home, and since I'm wholly uninteresting lately you get to see the list.
Deal:
I still own it, and I have amazing tenants, but it doesn't feel like it's mine anymore.
And that is silly, and emotional, and I get way to attached to places. I'm not very attached to things, but places carry enormous emotional weight for me. I track my life via places I've lived and traveled, moreso than stuff I've owned or relationships I've had (except with a few close friends, most of whom I've, yes, gone places with and forged a bond over them.) I know it's only a house, a very nice house, but still just a house. And that part of this isn't about any house, I'm just subconciously freaking out about moving to a new place, away from my friends and the eight (!!! it really has been eight years since I was a college freshman) years of roots I've put down.
I know all that. But still, thinking about the new house fills me with huge, squeeful, crazy excitement. Thinking about being so far from the Olympia house makes me want to cry.
I have my fear-based "If you hate it you can move back after 12 months" rule. I really don't think I'll hate it. I spent 18 years of my life in Massachusetts with relatively low levels of angst, except when it gets really really humid in the summer. And there is plenty I hate about Seattle, from the traffic to the sky-high artificially inflated property prices to the shitty, passive-aggressive attitude of many of its Chosen People (aka white, overprivileged hipsters.) The lack of public transportation. The long, dark night of February/March when even the Gothest Goth who ever slumped into the absinthe bar wants to stab their own neck with a ballpoint pen to get away from the cold, the dark and the wet.
But it's a beautiful place, it's been good to me overall, it has an amazing, hidden wonder to it that most cities don't have, and I'm going to miss it like hell. I've also met some truly incredible, first-class top-notch writers and friends and writer-friends that I am rue to leave behind.
I'll deal. I'm just trying to get it out, before I do something stupid like burst into tears when I see the space needle.
Change is the fuel that moves the engines of our lives forward. Otherwise we stagnate, and this past year has been all about trying to escape the stagnation I felt creeping up. I'm not used to being scared, and I react badly when I am, which is part of this too. It's scary to leave the place where you've lived the longest of anywhere in your life (I've averaged two years in other places, except for my childhood hometown of Nantucket, where I managed six.) But I do have a severe case of itchy feet. I need to go for my sake and the sake of my work and my sanity.
It's not like I'm going to the moon. I have the internet, I'm fortunate enough to be able to afford a plane ticket back whenever I want, and I'm not moving to a culturally retarded backwater. I actually think New England is second only to Washington in the number of genre writers clustered there like a strange, ill-socialized secret society. (I jest. But only kinda.)
But it's still a change, it's still a bit scary, and I'm admitting all that up front. I hate obsessing and fretting, so I will cease.
I'm still going to miss my old home.
And I think I can be okay with that, and not let it hold me back any longer.
Originally published at Caitlin Kittredge.
I'm sitting here now taking advantage of free socialist wifi in Boston, and posting progress from the day that was:
"The Curse of Four"
Bone Gods
In other news, I'm going to be getting home around midnight and that's if the hell that is SeaTac disgorges my bag in a timely manner so I can catch the 10:47 light rail train. There's a lot to do this weekend/week when I get home, and since I'm wholly uninteresting lately you get to see the list.
Deal:
- Contact dealership about new-old car to move back across the country with
- Contact movers for estimate
- Arranging shipping for the Impala and cancel my parking space
- Pick up moving boxes and begin packing
- Co-ordinate a bunch of dates for various non-writing creative stuff I'm doing in Seattle before I leave
- Set up a time for new author photos for my YA jacket flap
- Pick up the last of my furniture from the Olympia house for the move
- Panic and freak out
- Write
I still own it, and I have amazing tenants, but it doesn't feel like it's mine anymore.
And that is silly, and emotional, and I get way to attached to places. I'm not very attached to things, but places carry enormous emotional weight for me. I track my life via places I've lived and traveled, moreso than stuff I've owned or relationships I've had (except with a few close friends, most of whom I've, yes, gone places with and forged a bond over them.) I know it's only a house, a very nice house, but still just a house. And that part of this isn't about any house, I'm just subconciously freaking out about moving to a new place, away from my friends and the eight (!!! it really has been eight years since I was a college freshman) years of roots I've put down.
I know all that. But still, thinking about the new house fills me with huge, squeeful, crazy excitement. Thinking about being so far from the Olympia house makes me want to cry.
I have my fear-based "If you hate it you can move back after 12 months" rule. I really don't think I'll hate it. I spent 18 years of my life in Massachusetts with relatively low levels of angst, except when it gets really really humid in the summer. And there is plenty I hate about Seattle, from the traffic to the sky-high artificially inflated property prices to the shitty, passive-aggressive attitude of many of its Chosen People (aka white, overprivileged hipsters.) The lack of public transportation. The long, dark night of February/March when even the Gothest Goth who ever slumped into the absinthe bar wants to stab their own neck with a ballpoint pen to get away from the cold, the dark and the wet.
But it's a beautiful place, it's been good to me overall, it has an amazing, hidden wonder to it that most cities don't have, and I'm going to miss it like hell. I've also met some truly incredible, first-class top-notch writers and friends and writer-friends that I am rue to leave behind.
I'll deal. I'm just trying to get it out, before I do something stupid like burst into tears when I see the space needle.
Change is the fuel that moves the engines of our lives forward. Otherwise we stagnate, and this past year has been all about trying to escape the stagnation I felt creeping up. I'm not used to being scared, and I react badly when I am, which is part of this too. It's scary to leave the place where you've lived the longest of anywhere in your life (I've averaged two years in other places, except for my childhood hometown of Nantucket, where I managed six.) But I do have a severe case of itchy feet. I need to go for my sake and the sake of my work and my sanity.
It's not like I'm going to the moon. I have the internet, I'm fortunate enough to be able to afford a plane ticket back whenever I want, and I'm not moving to a culturally retarded backwater. I actually think New England is second only to Washington in the number of genre writers clustered there like a strange, ill-socialized secret society. (I jest. But only kinda.)
But it's still a change, it's still a bit scary, and I'm admitting all that up front. I hate obsessing and fretting, so I will cease.
I'm still going to miss my old home.
And I think I can be okay with that, and not let it hold me back any longer.
Originally published at Caitlin Kittredge.