a little post with pictures of home.

My mom took this as I was pulling the minivan back into the driveway for the first time in a year

beautiful, beautiful, Virginia

Graham and I went to the Arboretum in Blandy, he searched for mushrooms, I made daisy chains

look at all the morells we found!!!

then he stuck one in his ear

I made this little sculpture

girlfriends! at Joe's

In front of our old apartment

One night we taught Katherine how to dance. Six girls put on leotards and danced around the living room. This is the only mildly acceptable picture that remains.

oh yeah, and Hannah graduated!

anniversary!

It has been a year since I left home. It is very difficult for me to believe where I have been, what I have done, and who I am now.

My blog name is completely obsolete now. Obviously San Francisco wasn't the ending or the answer- at this point I am not sure there ever will be any endings or answers.

I can so clearly remember the day I decided to keep moving. I was sitting in a coffee shop on Mission Street drinking a frozen Chai tea writing in my journal about how miserable I was. During a particularly uncomfortable Chai milkshake induced brain freeze, I realized that I COULD leave. Now it seems so strange that this didn't occur to me immediately, but at that moment it seemed like such a brilliant realization. I was so scared to leave Jack and to be alone, completely clueless as to where I should go, and utterly terrified by the thought of a completely uncertain future.

For as long as I can remember I have planned everything out very carefully. I had calculated my whole life by the time I was about 10 years old. Its almost embarrassing to admit now, but I had every milestone planned by its corresponding age (complete education by 25, marry at 28, first child at 30, etc.) I knew what I wanted my future home to look like from shutters to paint colors, my career planned precisely, and a neat list of all the places I would travel during my alotted vacation days.

Now, I practically live out of a perpetually rolling minivan, have somewhat of an idea of what will happen tomorrow and maybe a few days after that, and only myself to answer to. I still have a hard time completely removing myself from the mindset that I have to have everything figured out all the time, but as a whole- my, my, how things have changed.

I leave for New York in a week, and I am going to try and write on this thing more often. I removed my facebook page when I realized how much time I was spending on it and how ridiculous the whole thing was (do I really care what a girl I sat across from in middle school and spoke to three times is eating for breakfast?! And no, just because there are new girls commenting on his pictures doesn't mean he is going to marry and have babies with any of them). It probably won't be gone forever, but for the time being this will be my only place for pictures and explanations of where I happen to be at any given point in time.

Oh yeah, 73,000 miles driven in one year. Wow, right?!

doin' the charleston

This past week my mother attended a conference in the darlin' city of Charleston, SC and I decided to tag along.

We stayed at The Francis Marion and every morning I woke up underneath my gold flowered comforter feeling like a little southern belle. While the mom was conferencing, I attempted to cure my latest troubles by exploring the city. I walked down cobblestone streets past 300 yr old homes and crowds of orange skinned fake blondes in their pink dresses. Though seemingly unrelated in other contexts, those two things (history, and rich stupidity) unfortunately meld together to create the city of Charleston. I suppose that is not all Charleston has to offer. There is also delicious food, beautiful, clean beaches, and handsome bell hops.

On the second night that we were there I got in touch with one of my oldest friends, Evan. We had not spoken in nearly five years, but after large portions of the most wonderful sushi and a few martinis with flowers in them, we were right back to where we had left off- drinking heavily and talking about ghosts. I got to meet his girlfriend who is a female version of Evan and also quite great. It was a good night that ended with a lovely cab ride home in which the Palestinian driver gushed about how much he loved America and how "EVERYDAY IS PARTY!!"

Palmettos on the water!

Waterfront Park

Mom and I on the beach

Gazebos are really great, aren't they?

Ah, I feel like I must say more about the buildings: the architecture of Charleston was just stunning. Every building uniquely structured and colored, and many of them had these incredible little gardens tucked past cast iron gates. I should have taken more pictures, but I didn't, so oh well.

If it wasn't so goddamn humid and rich I would love to live here.

things that have happened, are happening, and about to happen...

I have been back "home" for 2 and a half weeks now. It has been wonderful to spend time with my family and friends, to see tall green trees, and to bask in the familiarity of it all. However, once again, it only took me two weeks to remember why I had previously run away from this place.

I decided on coming back because I thought that I needed to be done with my tumbleweed existence. I desperately wanted to move "home" where things would be easier, where I wouldn't be so alone. Unfortunately,  just because you really, really, really want things to be easy and perfect doesn't mean that they ever will be.

Because I do still really enjoy running away from my problems, I called my boss at the camp I will be working at this summer and made arrangements to come up a month early and do some work to prepare for the arrival of campers. For a month I will be one of three people living there, in the middle of the Adirondacks, spending each day building gardens, repairing cabins, painting, and lots of other forms of manual labor. I know, I know, I have complained so much about being alone. I have come to realize that I have a very definite love/ hate relationship with loneliness. Hmm, or maybe I hate loneliness but I love punishing myself. Either way- I am off to do it again.

But first, tomorrow I leave for Radford, VA to see my little sister, whom I am immensely proud of, graduate college! I will spend a few days with the great Kalin in Blacksburg, VA, and then my mother and I leave for Charleston, SC. After Charleston I spend a week in Norfolk helping my mother prepare my childhood home for renters, then its back to Richmond to say my goodbyes to friends, and then i am off, once again.

Austin, Texas was way better this time around!

Pedernales (Jack always seems to be posing, doesn't he?)

The Salt Lick

Francis and Kate, some dear old friends

The gulls came by land and by air for Jack's hot dogs

Mount Bonnell- highest point in Austin- maybe 300 feet

Austin was great, so were Jack and Vineet.