Beginning, again.

Is this where you thought you would be, almost two years later? Still uncertain--just a different kind. Less adventure, more stability, predictability, staid domesticity--but it's not placid. Sometimes, lately, it's seething. And you want...what. To be doing something that matters, to be writing, again (and this means you're trying, that you never realized how all those years of journals since you were just a kid, all that daily chronicling of the angst and miniature and later, real, trauma, real knock-you-down & build you back up heart break, was good for something). Not something. Less vague, Michelle. Learn to to wield language like a weapon again, like a caress, like a promise, like a vow, like it's everything you are. And you will get back there, but it will take time. Practice, practice.

Be less afraid. Jackie told me that, almost six years ago now. Be less afraid. And I'll have to be, for the story (stories) I want to tell, for the life I want to live, to keep my relationship from going under the wreck. If my--our--history had been different, I would be wearing a ring right now. It was like a sucker punch when he told me, it knocked all the air from my lungs, and then, walking down that Park Slope street, warm evening air, holding hands, any other couple, appear calm, relaxed, not churned and ever so slightly wearying. Last week: "Something was wrong right? No one else noticed, but I'm a writer. I noticed. Marriage, right?"

And Justin, off to England & Chile & California, and who knows where else. Reaping the accolades (deserved, yes) but still hard to read my mother describe me to her friends, after rattling off his many accomplishments, that I'm living with my boyfriend in New York, and she's so thankful I'm starting school in January to be a librarian so I can actually be "marketable and self-sufficient." What happened to the Sarah Lawrence graduate, the Oxford student with a novella under her belt, the girl who helped to launch other writer's careers, who was a freelance journalist, a poet, an editor?

This is what I would have said: I'm learning how to be an adult. I work as a Research Assistant for a job that is boring and mindless at times and not in my field, true, but I do have a job, and one day all the trashiness and the incompetence and the occasional moments of heart will be great writing material. I am a Web Editor for a lauded non-fiction reading series and that in itself is providing with me friends, and a writing community, and networking opportunities. I am applying--again--to be a mentor with Girls Write Now. I could have had a full time writing job in my field but I turned it down because my mother, among other people, has always tried to show me what I am worth. I was worth more than that. I'm a writer and editor for another online publication that allows me the freedom to write (and publish) what and when I choose. I'm starting a competitive Masters program in Library Science in the spring, because, yes, I recognized I needed a pragmatic fallback and I don't want Mike to be the sole income earner forever. For a multitude of reasons, but first and foremost, so that I know I can get by on my own.

That's what I would have said. I'm getting there. It's a process, and I'll be the first to admit I'm rusty--probably rustier than I've ever been. I signed up for a 5K in August with Mike. I've never been a runner either. But I'm learning. One foot in front of the other. Keep going.