Shelter In Place

Last Sunday morning I was vacationing at my father's house, half a country away from my own home. I was sat in a comfortable deck chair enjoying the morning sun before its midday metamorphosis turned the whole operation into an oppressive, carcinogenic oven. My father and his wife were at church, and for the moment, I was alone.

An important note about me: I'm a bit of a muller. At any given moment, especially if I'm not actually speaking or listening to someone, it's very likely that I'm lost in my own thoughts. For a week or two before my trip, I'd been turning the idea of safe places around in my brain. When I say "safe places" it's important to note that I do not mean "Safe Spaces." I recognize the importance of the double capital S entities that have become so maligned by the righteously un-PC among us, but what I was thinking about was even more personal. My visit to my childhood home brought the idea into sharp focus.

My father's home is not my safe place. Though it was the only home I knew from birth to the age of majority, it never was, at least not at any point I can remember. I can remember fear. I can remember fighting. I remember guilt, shame, hurt, loneliness, and occasional joy. I remember hiding. Mostly though, I remember my bedroom.

If there was a safe place of any kind in that house, it was my bedroom. When I was 12 or 13, I got a TV/VCR for my room at Christmas. At 15, I bought myself a DVD player and amassed an impressive collection. I had a job in high school and distinctly recall pricing mini fridges and microwaves. I don't remember ever thinking it explicitly, but in retrospect, the clear goal was to never have to leave my bedroom again; at least until I could leave it for good.

In the home stretch of my childhood, something miraculous happened...I found a place. I was 17, angry as hell and also terrified. I had a car and a job, so I'd gone from never leaving my room to never coming home. Sure, I was on a tight leash with a strict curfew, but I was also an overachiever. As such, I had school clubs, athletic practices and various competitions to keep me busy along with regular school hours, work and church (we did a LOT of church). I discovered that if I played it right and didn't really care about gas prices, I could manage to be away for vast portions of most days.

I'd drive two towns over to get a milkshake or kick the soccer ball around on an empty field. I'd find a back road and drive fast (too fast) and hope I didn't get caught. Broken land speed records aside, my car was almost safe. It was fun to feel so independent, and to this day a solitary drive is almost always soothing to me, but it wasn't quite it. I needed a person.

Then I found them.

As an overachiever, I was frequently at school after hours, talking to teachers and advisors. My senior year, I was partly in charge of an academic club with a brand new faculty advisor. Before the year even started, I'd introduced myself and offered my services, such a gentleman/woman/person. This was a fairly involved club, so we'd often have lunch and after school meetings. Being (sort of) in charge meant even more responsibility for me, so I skipped band practice when I could to attend even more meetings and practices. Then I just started hanging out with this teacher damn near every day after school.

I'm trying to remember how it happened...why my teenaged brain could have possibly thought this was a good idea...but eventually I started visiting my faculty member at home. Evenings not spent at work or on school projects started to become TV watching events with my...friend?...person. I'd stay until late evening then go home to my room to start my homework. I never slept much in my own home, so I eventually started falling asleep on their couch during reruns of Friends or particularly boring movies. At the time, I remember being vaguely embarrassed and getting teased for it, but now all I can think of is how safe I must have felt, falling asleep in someone else's home, and how kind it was of them to just let me be, even for a little while.

Sometimes I'd bring food from my restaurant job or swing through a drive thru for ice cream for the both of us. It may not seem like it, but it was a starkly unromantic gesture; I think I was just enjoying caring for someone else and being able to give something to someone who was, again in retrospect, caring so much for me.

We kept in touch when I went to college. Over the next few years we racked up hours, probably days of night and weekend minutes. I grew up in fits and starts and began to stop hiding. I became who I am and, for the most part, they bore witness to it. Then we stopped talking. For years.

Last year, on a crisp fall evening, I sat on my porch with a massively alcoholic drink in my hand and used my two weapons of choice, drunkenness and the internet, to track them down. With impulsivity in the driver's seat, I called a phone number I wasn't even sure was correct and left a voicemail that was likely incomprehensible. And they called back. And we talked. Well, I talked, they listened. Over the next few months, we kept talking.

Late Sunday afternoon, I got to do the goddamned impossible; I got to go home again. I was terrified, but it was amazing. Like my father's house, the furniture was mostly different. I didn't fall asleep on the new couch and I wasn't the one who procured the pizza, but there was TV and joking and it felt almost the same.

Although our relationship has changed for the better, my father's house is not my safe place. It's a friendly place, a nice place, but it's still not home to me.

I'm not going to send you here, to this blog post, safe place person of mine, because just writing this weird non-romantic love letter about you would probably creep you out enough. Thank you. For letting me exist with you and teaching me what home feels like, thank you. I'm not sure that I'll ever know exactly what that meant in the context of your life, but for me, it's meant everything.

50 People

Bad. I don't have any other words yet. This is so bad.

Future Starts Slow

About two months ago, I received surprising but not unwelcome news that the graduate institution I'd been flirting with had somehow managed to put together a full funding package for me, pending my admission. Then in the time it usually takes me to research and settle on a new shampoo, I put together an application replete with glowing faculty recommendations, an APA-cited paper (thank you Dr. W), all the usual demographic information and a very personal statement.

Then I waited.

Sure, patience is a virtue, but thankfully just one of many, since I definitely don't have it. So while I waited, I passed the time by bothering everyone I knew incessantly. My dad, my partner, the PhD student who peer pressured me into starting this quest, my supervisor at work, my friend from back in Illinois, my dogs...everyone.

Once everyone told me (with varying degrees of tact) to quit it, I waited more quietly, pinging panicked thoughts around my own head instead.

After what seemed like an eternity, but was probably a couple of weeks, I finally found out that I got in. I was going to become a PhD student. Holy shit.

Since then, things have moved in fast and slow motion. I filled out more paperwork and ended my job at my alma mater. I finished the year in the public school district and spent an inordinate amount of time researching housing options in my future city. I told my other employers that my plans involved leaving them and their kids, and my university students that I wouldn't be back in the fall. I broke my own heart a little.

It's an interesting thing though; I've lived in this town for two years, and I've only felt at all at home in the last six months or so. Even though I'm usually a hermit, I've actually managed to make some friends. Just today I was actually invited to a social event. After a year and a half of not belonging, I've found some people to call my own, and in two months, I'll be gone.

Is this always how it goes? Do we only ever get a little bit of time, just moments really, where things really click? Does the clicking happen so slowly that we don't even notice it until it's about to pass? If we do wait it out, does it continue, or does the good stuff move on without us, just...leaving us stopped right where we stand?

It's hard not to be sad. It's hard not to be excited. The confluence is overwhelming, but I'm going to go. I need to go.

Adventures in everything-ing

Collected interactions from hard days' work:

1) In the car

Kiddo: Ugh. They should walk faster. They walk way too slow.
Me: Well, they're pretty old. That might be as fast as they can go.
Kiddo: Why are they old?
Me: ...

2) On a bike

Different Kiddo: You're young, right?
Me: Sort of.
DK: How old are you?
Me: 31
DK: Oh, that's still pretty young. I thought you were a seventh grader because you're not very tall. Maybe as tall as the average sixth grader. Maybe when you're 32, you'll be as tall as an eighth grader.

3) Dating Advice

Same Kiddo: You need to find a husband.
Me: You think so?
SK: Yeah. I can help you.
Me: Oh Yeah?
SK: Find the handsomest guy you can, tell him he's handsome, ask him on a date, get married.

4) Roommates

My Undergrad Student: Ugh, my roommate is the worst! She got so drunk I had to go get her from a party, then she fell asleep in my bed!
Me: I was never good at having roommates, I don't miss it.
MUS: Are you one of those people who is really, really tidy?
Me: Nah, just a big weirdo.

5) History

Kiddo from #s 2-3: Tell me about when you were 14.
Me: Well, the internet was slower and we didn't have YouTube.
K: ...but TV had been invented, right?

6) Personal Care (no. 1)

Same Kiddo: Why's your face covered with pimples...or are they freckles?
Me:...
SK:...
Me:...They're both, thank you.

7) Personal Care (no. 2)

Me: Okay, we're going to ride bikes today, so let's get your helmet and hop on!
Different Kiddo: *Pees*

8) On Affection (no. 1)

Me: Hey dude, this is our last class of the year! Can I have a hug?
*Hugs*
Me: Have an awesome summer, okay?
Different Kiddo: Okay.
*Wraps both arms around the back of my neck and pulls*
DK: Give us a goodbye kiss!!!

9) On Affection (no. 2)

Kiddo from #7: *Licks my arm*
*Runs his fingers through my hair*
*Tugs gently on my earlobe*
*Purples my nerple*