Cool, cool, cool

So originally, I had something entirely different I thought about posting this month.

And then I learned that an old friend passed away unexpectedly.

Since then, I’ve been a bit at a loss. I knew I just wanted this to be about her instead. 
Yet, I couldn’t figure out how to organize my thoughts. And, the truth is… I still can’t.
But June’s almost over. 
So we’re gonna struggle through this together, I guess.

I met her at a time where I was like… I mean, not my most messy and insecure… but pretty close?
I was 16 years old. 
She was well into her 20’s – working on her master’s.
I was in my peak theatre kid stretch – working on a show that two people I knew through that community were writing together. 
I was cast in a pretty small part and helped out on the crew.
She was their leading lady.
And, holy shit – I thought she was a total badass. 

She had all of her shit together with confidence I couldn’t help both marvel at, and be totally baffled by – because never in my life had it ever occurred to me that someone could be as unapologetically themselves as she was. 
And she made it look so fucking cool. And easy.

I remember telling her once that I worried about eating chocolate before I had to sing for a musical at my high school. She laughed it off and smiled at me. Like – “look at this precious little bean” and assured me she not only beer AND chocolate before a recital once, but also smoked a cigarette. 
She couldn’t be phased – because she genuinely knew whole heartedly that things would work out fine.

Oh yeah, because that was the other weird thing – 
We became friends. And she became a mentor to me.
Despite how awkward and unsure of myself I was when we met – she embraced me with her whole being, like I was a baby deer that somehow just wandered into her garden. 
This older, cool, adult-person looked at me… and saw me? Like saw me. 

We spent a lot of time together over the course of that show, but then she graduated and moved to another city, while I continued trying to figure myself out.
But – we stayed pretty good at keeping in touch.
Ironically… mostly through blog-writing.
In ye Xanga days of olde (if you know, you know).
Back in THOSE days… you couldn’t get me to stop posting any and all of my thoughts.
Constantly. Incessantly. 
And by golly, I think she read just about all of them?
And commented. 
And sometimes, we would text in greater detail.
She gave me some of the best – and wildest – advice I’ve ever received. 

Like, once she suggested I impress someone by showing up wearing only, what amounted to basically just a bearskin rug???
There was NO WORLD where that version of me could imagine doing anything of the sort, just to be clear – but the notion itself was powerful. 
Because, like… that’s a real thing someone did.
It’s a real thing she did.
Because she could. 
Because she could do anything. 

For years of my life that I look back on now with such enormous gratitude, she taught and encouraged confidence and self-worth I am only NOW beginning to fully understand. 
She did her very best to imbue not only me – but every single human she encountered – with boundless reserves of joy and radical acceptance. 
And that’s not to say I know she didn’t have her struggles. Her stuff. Like we all do.
I think she’d be super weirded out if I made her sound like she wasn’t human. 
She was.
She was suuuuuuch a fucking human. A good human. The best human.

We fell out of regular touch as life went on. She got married, she had a daughter. We had found ourselves in different seasons. But I dunno. I kind of always assumed I’d have another chance to hang out with her. To drink wine with her. To laugh about the old shit, and how far we had come. The way you always assume you have more time with people you love.
People who helped make you.

There’s no good way to end this. 
I’m fucking shattered for her family. 
She passed just days before her birthday. Her 44th. 
Life is short, but it is long. 
But it is short.
Hug your people. Love them now, the way you always intend to, later.

MV

I heard thunder earlier this month, which totally caught me off guard. And that was sort of an odd feeling.

As a child of the midwest, I am no stranger to thunder, or any of the other trappings of a storm.

They’d roll through with so much frequency – sometimes one after the next – they hardly ever seemed of note.
Even the really bad ones.
Even like, the one or two times we had thunder and lightning with snow (lake effect is wild).

I also need to mention here – some of those storm systems ripped through the land and caused a lot of heartache. Storms continue to do so. So I don’t want to leave any of that unmentioned – or minimize even one of the experiences others may have had. I can only speak for me. And I speak purely as someone who has had the privilege of, thus far, never having any real negative association with storms whatsoever.

Quite the contrary, infact.

I grew up in a house with good windows. Big, all the way to the floor. When I was little, I’d huddle myself inside the curtains and camp out there with a pile of blankets and toys, and sometimes I’d hold up there – literally for days. 
Especially when it rained.
Especially when it stormed.

I’d ooooh and ahhhhh every time a big streak of lightning would light up the sky – some of them were so bright and massive, I’d wonder if the sky was being cracked open. And with each boom, I’d jump – as if I somehow wasn’t expecting it. (But the same way I jump at scary movies now – despite the fact I fucking love them.) I even remember watching the weather channel with my parents, being totally enamoured and genuinely excited each time I’d see the graphics of storm clusters headed our way. There was just something about them – haunting, otherworldly. They shook the ground and electrified the clouds, and I loved every little magical bit of it. Even well into adulthood, where still nothing – and I do mean nothing – beats falling asleep to the sound of thunder.

Imagine my great surprise then years ago – to learn that thunderstorms in the Greater Vancouver area?

Nooooooot really a thing. Actually, pretty rare.

All the conditions that make the atmosphere ripe for storm formation in the midwest, are the same ones that are missing from here. Two entirely different climates. Drastically different weather. I know a lot of Americans hear “Canada” and think “cold”. But actually, if there’s one word I could use to describe the weather in this part of BC?

Mild.

It’s consistently coastal. It is either rain, or overcast, or sun – sometimes all three in a day (weirdly, sometimes all of them, all at once??) And wind can show up anytime, as it blows inland off of The Pacific. But never too much of an extreme in either direction. No snow, no storms. (Not never – but super uncommon)

That being said, the other night – after not a particularly rainy or remarkable weather-day – suddenly there were distant rumbles.

But, we live in a fairly busy part of an already rather lively area – it’s not uncommon at all for anything – a big truck, a door slam, equipment rattle (or literally any other generic city noise) to send a loud crack into the air as it bounces against all the metal and concrete. So, (despite the fact it didn’t sound like any of those things – it sounded like fucking thunder) we talked ourselves into assuming that whatever it was, happened the one time and was probably over. But then it happened again – and then not too long after, again. It became impossible to deny-

It was unmistakably thunder. 

The rain soon followed. And then I had to go outside. 

I stood on our patio and looked up at the clouds. The “storm” didn’t last long, and the rain stopped pretty soon after – but it didn’t matter. I was completely enchanted all the same.

I mean it when I say – I wouldn’t trade absolutely anything about this place for anything, and not for any reason. But. I’d be lying if I said sometimes I didn’t miss seeing the lightning. Hearing the thunder. It had become the white noise for so much of my life that it almost makes me wonder if I just need more practice with calm. 

I’ve been trying, though.
There’s stuff I don’t think I knew how to tackle before. Stuff I couldn’t seem to wrap my head around fully in my previous climate. All of my trust issues, struggles with self-esteem, and not wanting to burden people – outdated, derelect pieces of myself I’ve let stay attached for far too long. I have a lot of work to do to clear out what has been there before. There will continue to be more work. I come from a stormy place – and I was stormy there, too. While much less frequent, it seems thunder is not gone from my life. Weather is funny like that. Weather doesn’t logic, it doesn’t reason, it doesn’t consider. It is purely conditional.

Maybe that’s why (according to the internet) at a certain age, we start talking about the weather all the time. (And evidently, if you’re me – write blog posts about it.)

Here’s to overthinking, to metaphors, and forever rolling with the thunder-

MV

Well, hello there.
Long time, no see. 

It doesn’t feel like it’s been that long? But, in actuality it’s been over a month now. 

Time continues to feel like a construct, as life lately has been a lot of a little bit of everything.

In the days leading up to me coming to BC, I’d have some silent and still moments – usually early in the morning or late at night – where I’d check in with myself, and issue a reminder:

“No matter how excited, laser focused, and optimistic you are now… remember to temper yourself. Life isn’t going to stop happening just because you move yours to a different location. And when that happens… go with it. You are not in control like you think you are.”

Which, as it turns out, was not at all incorrect and is a sentiment that has been both humbling, and haunting as life, indeed, has not stopped happening now that I’m here. And no matter how pure my intention to keep up with this blog, I keep finding reasons not to.

I have such a complicated relationship with consistency. 

On one hand? In some ways, I am almost offensively, predictably, consistent. (Just ask anyone who has ever been irritated with me over virtually anything, for any reason).

Regarding the opposite hand however – the things I am aching to be consistent at… the habits I am dying to build (and rebuild) that I know are good for me… they elude me in a way that makes me feel like I have absolutely no self control whatsoever. 

For example – I have learned unequivocally over the last decade, the less time I allow myself to spend stewing in my own head… the better. I made a decision several years ago to intentionally dedicate more time to occupying my body, instead – to exist in the physical world, and be present there. 

I started moving. Walking like crazy, working out.

I WATCHED it make me feel better. I proved it to myself. I was there.

And so, with that lesson in mind, I got a gym membership here a few weeks ago. 
… Do you think I’ve been more than once so far?
Even though I know it’s good for me?
(To be clear… nope)

Just like showing up here and getting some words out. Splling some guts. Sitting down in front of a blank screen and forcing myself to untie some mental knots. To get up from the keyboard with a refreshed sense of some mental clarity. It’s my oldest form of therapy. I know it’s good for me. 

Sometimes I have this nagging thought – “If I could just push myself to make these things into habits – to be consistent – then, holy shit.” (I mean, honestly, if I knew how to harness my own stubbornness for my benefit, I would have done so by now. It’s a work in progress.) 

Despite all that – it has been a really incredible month of creating.

I’ve had this fantasy idea for a novel/screenplay kicking up mental dust for yeeeears – pages and pages of notes, spanning multiple notebooks, and inkwells, and eras of time. And finally, I’ve been doing something with all of it. Which has been a little bit of a mess? – But a fun one. 

I’ve had to kill some darlings though. I’m such a different human now, compared to when it was all originally conceived. I feel differently – I believe differently. And perhaps most important, I write differently. I still love a lot of the ideas, but I needed to reshuffle them. It was like a bin of blocks I flipped upside down onto the floor. I just stared at all the pieces until I figured out how I wanted to re-stack them. It’s still gonna be such a long endeavor of a journey – I am a quite a ways away from having it all “cracked”. But the absolute fucking joy it’s been to get lost in a world I’ve built myself… It’s been a long time. I have consistently worked on it – but it’s been at the expense of lots of other things (like showing up here). 

This is the only other way I know consistency to make an appearance, comes in the form of fixation. Just, pure and blatant disregard for almost everything else. Even all the other stuff that is good for me. 

All of this leads me to believe that maybe, consistency is more about balance than it is anything else. Which is also, an absolute work in progress. But the progress is indisputable. Especially as I allow myself to lean further and further into living a life full of the things I love. The stuff that makes me feel like me. My own consistencies, so many of which, I had somehow fallen away from. 

I’ll find a way to “crack” my own code, and end up here more. And eventually, I’ll go back to the gym as well. 

As a random side story – on the bus yesterday, the driver told us all he wasn’t familiar with the changes on this route. Evidently it had been over a year, and he didn’t know how to navigate all the construction changes. Several of the passengers directed him on how to go, and it was one of the kindest and most wholesome interactions I’ve seen in a long time – I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. It feels like such a contradiction to be alive in this time in history, where I have seen the best and worst examples of humanness co-exist like shadows in the afternoon sun.

We, too, continue to be a work in progress.

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk. 

MV

I’ve been stewing over the perfect thing to write about here – which has turned into days and days of putting off posting anything at all. Then I remembered, I literally made this public as a way to keep myself accountable. You know, “just show up”? – Or whatever dumb thing I said.

Anyway, here I am.

We can stumble through this together.

I am uncharacteristically unemployed right now – and that’s got me feeling weird – annnnnd I got lots of free time to think about just how weird. 

Don’t get me wrong – the break is needed and appreciated. The last several years have been something of a treadmill of trials, and to have this kind of time in my days, is a gift I don’t take for granted. While I could (and I have) wax on and on poetically about how happy I am, this has been a humbling reminder that no matter how right my external world may feel – there is no substitute or shortcut to feeling right with myself. Yanno. The inside stuff. The stuff that makes you itchy. 

Stuff like doubts, and insecurities, and “Why are you even writing this blog, Meredith?” or, my favorite little hex on productivity – “Why are you writing anything? I mean, it’s not the worst… but like, it’s not not the worst?” 

BUT beyond these horrific and relentless internal voices – it’s also the gnawing, nagging feeling that I want to make this time mean something, dammit.

It has officially been a month and some change that I’ve been in BC – and that astounds me for both how short and long it feels. In some ways, it feels equal parts that I’ve always been here, and also that I never left. But I know that’s not the case, because the world was entirely different the last time I lived here – and for that matter, so was I. That’s why it shocked me when, suddenly – I realized I kept finding little ole’ bits of the familiar. Nuggets. Fractals. All over the ground. Like, everywhere, in almost every place I looked.  Old parts of me. Maybe some old wishes? Old hopes and dreams? Bits of wonder and whimsy I had tucked away for later? Like time traveling to meet my past self and finding a map of how to get there. Except it wasn’t a map, it was a tangled mess.

I haven’t known what to do with any of it. 

I feel exceedingly grateful to have this kind of unencumbered time and mental space to let creativity flow, but I can’t help but to admit to some occasional overwhelm. I have always dreamed of this – I’ve always imagined what kind of work and words I’d be capable of producing with this kind of freedom. But having it, means I also feel the weight of having it – and the awful fear of falling short makes me almost not want to do anything. Like this weird, analysis-is-paralysis, infectious call to perfectionism that I can’t shake.

Instead of letting it all just be what it actually is… fun.

In fact, creating is the most fun I can think of. It’s just playing make believe. Literally, it’s the very first thing I ever realized I truly loved to do – when I was just a little kid, playing with my toys, having the time of my life.

But, somewhere along the way, I let it become something I was capable of failing at – instead of letting it be something I simply just adored. To let myself play, and craft, and worldbuild, and plot, and experiment, and iterate upon – again and again and again. To write for an audience of just myself – much in the same way I’m learning to just exist for just an audience of myself. 

We’ve managed to squeeze a lot of life into these last several weeks, and I’ve been presented over and over again with examples of exactly the kind of creative injections and reminders I’ve needed to feel inspired again. Moments of recognition as new/old parts of my brain light up and come back online for the first time in who knows how long. And now, I’m back to feeling itchy for my laptop whenever it’s not around. And the Notes app on my phone is almost never not recently opened or closed. It’s constant again. The buzz. 

I’m not sure what I’m doing yet, but the ideas I have feel like when you stumble onto a sight you can’t take your eyes off of. They make me giddy, they take my breath away – and they give me that feeling when you’re so excited about a moment that you’re not even there anymore – you’re too busy thinking about how you’ll never forget it before it’s even passed. So, I’m just gonna try stay here, for as long as I can. In the warm glow of whatever this feeling is. Because it feels like maybe… I’m onto something. 

“Amaze!”

“Amaze!”

“Amaze!”

MV

Blink and you’ll miss it – 

11 years, come and gone in a flash.

I admit, I spent a lot of it ruminating on what I imagined could have been. 

What if I had found a way to stay in Vancouver? 

But it had seemed unattainable at the time – an insurmountable dilemma that I couldn’t imagine carried an actual solution. So I resigned myself, and tried really hard – like really hard – to want something different instead. I dug in, and I committed. And, I think I had to get what I’d always been told I was supposed to want. 

I know me – I’m a pain.
There was gonna be no cure to my fascination with a version of myself who was happy in a life that pleased everybody. Where I upheld all the standards and expectations, and still got what I wanted out of it. I wanted to believe that would be the thing that “fixed me”. The thing that forced me to settle my restless, wandering soul. If nothing else – I had to see backstage – to see how it all worked, and to get out of the audience. I had to find out for myself that none of it was what I thought I would be. I think somewhere… in the recesses of all the things I buried… I always knew that to be true.
I always knew I was not meant for any of it.

Just had to see it for myself. But once I did-

In no time, I found myself on a plane. Then a new city. Then right back where I started… where I had nothing to do but rebuild myself and remember who I was. I had my own place, two cats that fate had shuffled my way, and a job that I loved, despite how crazy it made me. Little by little, I stitched myself back into a whole person (while of course finding all kinds of fun, creative new ways to make mistakes and learn the hard way). Which is where I was, and what I was doing, when an enormous and unforeseen plot twist smacked me square in the face.

Life had already carried me so far – down quite a few chaotic and twisty paths – some harrowing adventures in the midst of some unexpected situations. Sometimes I was the product of shifting sands, sometimes I was the catalyst for them. And somehow, despite all I had learned to the contrary, I’d allowed myself to be on the verge of believing nothing could surprise me anymore.

That’s when Change – in her most colossal, seismic action yet- rerouted me back to Someone. Someone I was always excited to talk to.
Someone I was always excited to laugh with.
Someone I was always excited to nerd out with, vent with, reminisce with, theorycraft with, and create with.
Someone I had never not been missing.
And – I had been rerouted to Somewhere.
Beautiful British Columbia.
Which I had also, never not been missing.

Vancouver… This gorgeous, magical city, tucked away in the Pacific Northwest… at the seat of the mountains and in the arms of the sea. When I lived here before, the very first thing that would cross my mind as my eyelids first blinked themselves open was the sheer weight of my wonder. I couldn’t believe where I was living. I couldn’t believe how beautiful it was, in all weather and from every angle. And at the moment the city lights, the mountains, the ocean – all rolled into sight from the window of the plane, I felt my body heave a giant sigh of relief.
And I realized-
This is exactly how things had to unfold.
I had to leave.
So I could sort myself out, and then come back.

But, holy shit.

The wonder, the lessons and revelations have all been plentiful, yet the words have not. Much as I’ve been dying to get it all out, I have to be honest; It’s been a struggle to sit down and lock in to begin telling this story. Because this story is just so many things.

On one hand, it is a story that spans more than a decade, two countries, many miles (kilometers) of two people winding their way both towards, and away from each other more than once. 

It’s also a story that tells the classic and foundational tale of friends to lovers.

And still yet, it is a story made up of countless smaller stories- 

So many words written and lines sketched, and hundreds-if-not-thousands of hours logged in long-distance co-movie watching, and phone calls and who-could-guess how many pictures and articles and memes exchanged. Stories of boxes taped, and suitcases packed, and endless trips to cars, and multiple airports, and traveling on planes with two (very drugged) cats, and countless hours of planning in between. 

But perhaps most exciting, are all of these new stories still actively being written. 

The ones made from living a full life alongside your very best friend.

Stories of holding hands everywhere, trips and adventures, meeting friends, family time, eating so much food, cuddling cats, constant bits, movie nights (though now, the in-person kind – whether at home or in theaters). Stories about the radical addiction you can form to making someone laugh, and stories about realizing that person is the ONLY other person on the planet who speaks exactly the same language, in the same dialect and tone, with the same accent as you. The person who gets you completely. And always has.

It’s become so rare that I ever find myself truly at a loss for words, but telling this story has haunted me.
How can I possibly do justice to this tale?
What collection of sentences do I string together to describe what this journey has felt like?
The ineffable alchemy my brain has undergone – even in just the last month?
It all has felt impossible. That I could somehow gather all my gratitude, and contentment, and awe, and LOVE, into my arms and somehow adequately translate it here?

But as I walked home the other day – a bag of groceries on my shoulder, and a bag of gummy worms in my hand… I couldn’t believe where I was. I couldn’t get over how lucky I felt. The surrealness of it all. It’s almost so infathomable, I would have a hard time believing it all if I were anybody else.
And I could feel it all starting to spill out of me.
I suspect it will continue – as Time does what she does, and moves us all forward. 

The words will come. 

The stories will need writing. 

I will be here. 

I just had to start somewhere. 

I continue to be baffled at times by what I really want, or envision this to be. But I think the last year has been a good reminder that all I really want to do – all the time, day and night – is absorb, and create, and tell stories. And maybe that’s all this needs to be – a place to do that with my own.

(Also, the credit for the title goes entirely to Dylan – my other/taller half, whose skill for combining the hilarious and profound is unrivaled, and it was everything I needed it to be.
As usual.)

MV

I am surrounded by boxes.

And suitcases.
And bags.
And all the little random bits of paper, cardboard, styrofoam, and god-knows-whatever-else that seem to end up in the carpet while packing things up and shuffling them around.

It is the season of Leaving – and it has blown in like a western storm.
Kicking up all kinds of dust.
Ripping roots right up and out of the earth.

I moved into this apartment almost exactly two years ago to the day – squeezed it in somehow between what, at the time, were long and overwhelming days of work, in a position I was recently promoted to – and loved – but, was still very much getting the hang of.

I was not quite legally divorced yet, not quite sure how to navigate the relationship that followed, not quite sure how to process being back in my hometown, not quite sure of what I wanted to do next… not quite sure of one damn thing.

Then, I found this place.
And suddenly I was sure that I wanted it.

Although, I admit, it was the first and only place that even got a visit. It had high ceilings, a walk in closet, and an enormous bathroom mirror. It was also only 10 minutes from my work, in a safe and quiet area – and for whatever reason, they were running a special signing bonus that came with a free 55″ TV… so that kind of settled that.

Rarely, if ever, have I known life to let you choose the perfect specifications and dimensions for a landing pad/recovery room/sanctuary – they tend to appear without warning, right on the spot. As if the universe literally hands it to you, like leftover fries it doesn’t have room for.
“You want? Or nah?”
I have learned there is only one correct answer (just like with fries): Yes.

It was a lot of fucking work though – free TV notwithstanding.

For reasons we’ll skip for now, the first year here was kind of… miserable? I didn’t usually want to come home. Or, I’d be too nervous to leave, for fear of what I might come home to later. The high ceilings didn’t feel high enough anymore – it felt like a claustrophobic, suffocating cage. And no matter how quiet the area, I couldn’t get my nervous system to rest.
Not ever.
Year one taught me a lot about both what I could handle, and what my limits were – the stuff I could and could not tolerate, and the lesson of “just because I can, just because I am willing to, doesn’t mean I should have to“
Then… after a tornado…
The pressure released.
The air changed.
The vacuum created once the chaos dispersed, was almost instantly replaced with calm.
“Well now… do you remember now? This is how it‘s supposed to feel.”
Which is how year two became so much softer.

But, did it ever feel like home here?

I mean, no?
Not home home.

But it did become a lot of other things.

It became the place I fussed over constantly – checking stove dials, locks, outlets, and windows with almost embarrassing regularity.
It became the place where I’d flit from task to task with music, or a podcast playing and a million thoughts in my head.
It became the place I scrambled to leave on time for work after trying on countless different outfit combinations.
The place I’d rest.
The place I’d write.
The place I’d let laundry pile up (but eventually handle).
The place I’d nap.
The place I’d work out.
The place I’d have solo dance parties.
The place I’d try recipes.
The place I’d curl up with my cats.
It became the place where I fell (back?) in love with my favorite person.
The place I’d have weekly long distance date nights.
The place I’d collapse after a long day.
The place I couldn’t wait to get back to.
And eventually-
It did become a landing pad. A recovery room. A sanctuary.

And as it turns out, a place I feel a little emotional about leaving.

Which, brings me back to the boxes.

This week will be my last full one in this apartment.
Two years have come and gone.

The last time I moved out of a place completely by myself, it was 11 years ago-
Ironically, in Vancouver.
It’s been what feels like multiple lifetimes since then. The circumstances this time could not begin to be more different, and yet –
Both then and now share one striking similarity.

Each time and place was a metamorphosis.
It’s own little self-contained cocoon of transformation.
In fact, in some ways? This one almost feels like it picked up where I had left off – a re-reckoning with who I am… and all the things I want for myself.
And that’s why I’m leaving.
That’s how I know it’s time.

I have a lot of becoming left – so much so, that I suspect I may never be fully finished. It will likely be my life’s work – to grow myself into the person I am still learning to recognize and aspire to. I’ll be honest, there are more days than I’d like where it feels similar to dumping sea monkeys into a bowl of water and hoping for the best.
But, every now and then-
It becomes undeniable to me that I am, in fact, on the right path.

11 years ago, much like the present, I was avoiding packing.
So, (much like the present) I sat down and wrote something – a letter to my apartment.
I posted it on a blog that’s no longer around. (Maybe I’ll pop it in over here someday. I dunno.)
But I pulled it up to read, as I sat down to write this.
I called the post-
“Packing: A Love-Letter to My Apartment”

And, yanno what?
I’m gonna finish this now, the same way I did back then.
I can’t think of anything else I need to add.

^{As I pack my things, and I leave you empty… please know that I am leaving more full than I could have ever imagined a year ago. I hope wholeheartedly that whomever takes my place realizes how fortunate they are to live somewhere that has seen so much love, and stood witness to so much change for the better.
Thank you for it all.
Cheers and love,
MV}