Leading up to how I currently feel was a long journey. Yes with our detours and stops it was nearly 4,000 miles and 6 days of driving but besides the physical distance I literally feel thousands of miles away from the emotional and mental states that used to be the norm.
For starters, leaving camp was emotional as expected. Goodbyes are extremely difficult when you've spent every day, hour and second with people and suddenly you are forced to hug goodbye and give that "I will see you one day" comment when really they are flying across the globe and one day seems like forever. The only warm hearted feeling is that I will stay in touch with those people and Camp Boston starts relatively soon! (Another bonus for living in a city where a) heaps of other counselors attend school b) a place where foreigners wanna see while touring the USA and c) where Kevin calls home :)
36 hours after packing up my dirty, camp fire smelling clothes and driving down the mountains, I had repacked everything, given away half my life and taped endless boxes of things I wanted shipped to Boston. Taylor and I left in 'Shaneanea' (the lil jetta that we grew to love) and said goodbye to the family and the golden state. It was like leaving for college all over again and like this deep, swollen wound in my heart was being torn open. It felt permanent and like that moment in 'Father of the Bride' where she says she knows she can't stay, she knows she can always return but she feels like she has to turn in her key. Funny that it's my all time favorite movie and for the first time I could relate.
We started our adventure and along came crazy stories and memories- pouring gasoline on Taylor's leg, finding blood in my DQ ice cream come (side note I am totally healthy and do not have diseases from this now funny story), sleeping in the car at a truck stop, being pulled over and strip searched by the Wyoming State Patrol, returning to Boulder and seeing the most important people in the 303, camping in the Badlands, exploring Minneapolis and loving it (even went to the State Fair, went on roller coasters and pet a sheep), cruising across middle America and deciding one day I will live on a farm in Ohio, camping in Ithaca and deciding I will never live there nor step foot there again and finally pulling into Boston and seeing that we had made it. Quite the long run on sentence to mirror the long run on my body and mind while being stuck in a car for 6 days.
So this all leads up to these past 24 hours. Last night we got discouraged as a fellow new Boston resident told us we would essentially fail- we wouldn't find an apartment, friends and even that we would gain weight (hum total side track but yes she implied it). We fell asleep in this gorgeous Victorian Boston home (thanks for college friends!) and as I tossed and turned and worried I just tried to breathe. Restless sleep woke me up at 6am and so we tuned out negativity and went off to find us a home.
I had a feeling that apartment #2 would be the one- 22 is my lucky number but I didn't have the patience or time to see 22 apartments so 2 would do. With one turn of the key, Jordan, the 30 year old realtor who suddenly became our bestie, opened the large wooden door of our dreams. Perfect 2 bedroom, large kitchen, inspiring windows and enough possibility to make it our own that no other apartment compared. The next hours now seem like a blur- we had to get papers signed, money transferred, open new bank accounts, drive around Boston and not get hit by the T and somehow survive in the blazing humid heat. But guess what- we did it. By 5pm, we had signed everything, met the owner and convinced him we were the tenants he'd been looking for. We had made friends along the way and actually have furniture looking dates tomorrow (the BC kids put all their sweet furniture out on the streets for free and yes it's classy and yet it's used but literally we are broke).
So here I am- it's been years of dreaming and suddenly it's all coming true. As of midnight tonight, I have an apartment. I have signed a lease for 1 year and therefore, not like I ever would leave, but am required to stay here and make a life. Joanna and I have pushed aside every worry and every bad thing people have told us and well stuck it to the man. We did it.
The universe, now more than ever, is unfolding. Maybe I need a job but tonight I'm focusing on all that I have. I have an amazingly supportive family who went out of their way to praise this accomplishment and even went out of their busy day to co-sign a lease so that his roadrunning daughter can start a new life. I have a best friend who put up with my worries and tears and reminded me that it would work out and friends who currently don't live here but have been in spirit this whole journey. I have a loving boy (ok fine he's a man) who has made me so beyond excited to take over the east coast and explore every inch of my new city with him even though he calls it his backyard. My dreams have literally come true. I may be 3,000 miles away from the west coast, from the familiarity and from the people I love more than humanely possible but in this new city, in a new room with no bed and ok I'm in a sleeping bag until I have enough money to buy a bed... I feel right where I should be and I wouldn't trade it for anything.
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