free time.

gluttony.

I am currently recuperating from a long week of heart-string and health-jerking moments. Drove too fast to Chicago, in weather that was too cold, stayed up too late and loved too much, typed too many memories and listened too intently. Ate too much, and then too little, drove back to Pennsylvania and have been too sick to function.

This morning was the first morning I paced myself appropriately. One load of laundry. One cycle on the dishwasher. One walk with the dog around just one block. Small bowl of oatmeal. Then one cup of yogurt later on. Sat and wrote checks for bills and then spent the afternoon resting off this mono I apparently have. Mono. What a good name for it.

I always feel like I gluttonize my entire life. Like I try to do as much as I can, while I can. Gotta soak it up. Can't stop at one slice, one glass, one kiss, one chapter. I have to do it all at once, more more more. I don't know if it's my addictive personality, or my desire for experiences, or what. Probably just my selfishness. Gluttony is so much more than just food.

I am a glutton for punishmentlovejoylifestoriesinspiration.

So, new years resolutions are tacky, but that is what I am striving for this year. Last year, my resolution was joy. I was going to spend the year in search of joy. I found it, mostly. I found it in the walk to the train, the new friends I made, the shadow of the skyline. I found it in nesting in my beautiful little Pennsylvania apartment, the peace of sunrise, the presence of family. I followed it to other cities, other friends, long weekends. Joy was a resolution I kept and lived.

This year, I'm striving for pacing patience. No more all at once. I want to do things carefully, one step at a time.

Like this morning.

hands.

I don't listen to my voicemails. Ever since starting school I'm picking at the skin around my nails. And every night I feel like I don't get enough sleep.

The last six months I was in Chicago I never used my car. In fact, when I did use my car, I'd panic a bit, because it'd been so long since the last time, and I was afraid I'd forget the rules of the road or utterly fail at what was previously my best talent: parallel parking. I mostly just took the train. Or a cab. Or walk.

I love to walk. Walking is the best.

But now I live in my car. Driving twenty minutes to school. Driving twenty minutes to home. 40 to Lancaster. 3 hours to Brooklyn. 9 hours to Chicago. It'll take me 5 to go see Devin and Jen in Richmond. It's very isolating.

Unless I play music.

Countdowns keep me sane. Which is weird, because countdowns are normally in anticipation for going somewhere else, but I actually suffer from an underlying buzz of anxiety being away from my dog. My dog keeps me sane. I feel kind of lame saying that. Oh well. C'est vrai.

This weekend I had a chocolate icing fight in a Manhattan bar. I was backed into a wall where I collapsed on the floor, laughing so hard I couldn't breathe. It was very unladylike, and probably would have embarrassed any boyfriend I could have.

Thank goodness I don't have a boyfriend. Moments like that make me beam. Embarrassed boyfriends ruin them.

I think having an unembarrassed boyfriend would be nice though.

Maybe I'll re-arrange my living room.

longing.

In almost all of my favorite movies there is a poignant reference to the movement of life... to longing for the past, to realizing that you can never repeat it, to learning lessons that you thought you knew back then, mourning, missing, changing, pushing forward, trying to adapt, hoping for something more wonderful. Something about it gets me, it's usually the line that makes my eyes well up. (okay, which happens a lot, I'm a big movie-crier.)

But sometimes I wonder if I try to make my life into the movie, or if the reference to the movement of life in my fave movies resonates with me because it IS my life. I never know. I never know if I grew up loving NYC because I saw that it was "cool" in movies, or if because I'm really a city girl at heart. I don't know if I adore my cute-apartment-with-big-dog lifestyle because all the awesome single girls in movies have that, or if because I love the life I made for myself. Sometimes, the cool-factor of saying "I lived in Los Angeles and Chicago. My best friend lives in Brooklyn. I didn't like Italy, but I adored Austria. I know a semi-famous band. I was in a movie. I wear Anthropologie clothing." totally outshines the actual joy of the actual thing.

I hated L.A. Why do I have to prove I lived in Chicago?
Brooklyn is odd, I'd never live there.
Italy smelled bad, why keep talking about it?
I liked Austria because it didn't smell bad. I don't ever think about Austria.
The band knows my name. None of my friends even actually like the band.
I was an extra. When I was eleven. Who cares?
I like how Anthroplogie clothing looks, that's all that is supposed to matter, right?

So what came first? The media-generated opinion, or the personal opinion?

Does listening to great music while staring out the window of a train ACTUALLY feel like anything other than a movie?

I don't know.

Then there is the realization that life, no matter it's movie-influence, still does shape you enough to know some things. Like the fact that two cities have been my salvation this summer.

There is a cool factor: going to Brooklyn on the weekends. (oh, I'm so awesome, I'm such an adult. I drive to the biggest city in the country with ease, ha-ha-ha, i'm so cool.) But there's a life factor: I adore the people there. All of them. I like the dirty streets and the corner-dwellers. I like the messy BBQ table and the homemade benches. I like the ladders to rooftops and lurking/loving dogs. I like the hung-over brunches and the midnight games and movies. I like the to-and-fro. To-and-fro is the absolute best phrase to describe Brooklyn. I love all the laughter and the hugs when someone arrives. I especially like that it's no longer "nice to see you again." but "Allison!! Yay, I'm so glad you're here!!"

Obviously, Brooklyn reminds me of my life in Chicago, and for that I cling to it. The people are different... the group I was apart of for so long in Chicago was aloof and always slightly difficult to manage. I never felt warmth with them. I felt pretty cool, yes, and even affection, but not caring. Not real interest in anything I was, had, did, thought. Brooklyn has the love. I love that about Brooklyn.

Disclaimer: towards the end of my time in Chicago, there was love, affection, and warmth among my friends that I had made since being exiled, if you were, from the previous group. I just wanted to put that in there for any of those warm-affectionate-loving-chicago friends who might read this and go "HEY!"

Then there's Lancaster. Oh, Lancaster- I can't even sum up what you are and what you mean to me. All I know is that when I go to Lancaster, I feel such joy. It's not really a feeling of belonging, or arrival, it's a feeling of comfort. Perfect ease. Old classmates as adults now. A mutual understanding of the fact that we've grown up, but we still have fun, and we love our art and our shared past. Running into people you never thought you'd see again, and laughter ensues. And dancing.

And that is what came first: joy.

sliced.

(I'm not suicidal. I just want that on the record. I realize this art makes me look like I want to slit my wrists, but I promise you: I don't.)

::I have noticed that in being single, I am much more able to find my muse. I want to make art constantly, I want to write and draw and cut and paste and paint and scan and illustrate, and then I want to put it all together on a giant canvas and mail it in an envelope to all my friends. These are thoughts that go through my head.. things that don't make any sense (ie: giant canvases in tiny envelopes) but I want to do it. Like... being filled up with too much that I need to spread out.

:: Today I stopped at a gas station to put air in my cars tires that are a little low. I stopped in the mini-mart, where there were three men standing, including the cashier. Those kind of dirty, overweight, obviously married but their eyes still follow you. Probably have kids, but have grundgy jobs where they hang out with other dirtyoverweightobviouslymarried men with lustful eyes. You know the type. Usually I'd avoid eye contact, but still be sweet to the cashier, probably smile, and predictably - one of the men would say something. It sounds egotistical, but if you are a semi-attractive girl with boobs and a nice smile, alone, at a mini-mart, in front of dirtyoverweightmarried men, you're going to get a comment. I bet you a million dollars. I hate it. I hate it with so much passion, that today, for the first time, I tried a new approach. I didn't avoid eye contact, I wasn't sweet (but not impolite. just.. no nonsense.), and I did not smile. At all. And I did not get any comments. At all. bliss.

:: A long time ago, I had an old Ford explorer named Pretty Norman. I loved that car a lot, so when I decided to trade it in for my car now (VW named Canilope.) I took a lot of pictures of myself saying goodbye. My camera was stolen out of Pretty Norman that night, and I never saw it, or Pretty Norman, again. A few weeks later, Google premiered 'Street View' on their maps. Of course, my ex and I had great fun "cruising" the streets online that we walked every day. But then we found something even more wonderful: Google had driven down the street in front of his apartment at the same time that Pretty Norman was parked in front of it, in the same spot that I had parked it when it started having engine problems and I had to start using my ex's car to get to work. I was ecstatic. Pictures of Pretty Norman!

... well, just yesterday, I decided to look at that Street View again. It's such a strange jolt to see my old car parked on my old boyfriend's old street. It's like peering back in time. And on a whim, I decided to look up my old boss's house. Sure enough, there it was. A dark green saturn station wagon parked in front of it. My ex's car. Meaning that the same era of time that Google drove down Huron street in the Ukrainian Village, they drove down Kirkwood Avenue in Lincolnwood. It was REALLY peering back in time. All the streets were of the same era. I sat looking at my laptop screen, staring at his car in front of that house. Knowing that I was inside that house, my first summer in Chicago, taking care of a baby, and desperately in love with the owner of that car. So young and unknowing. Wonderfully clueless. I want to ring the doorbell and tell her how she'll grow. I want to say goodbye to that car, which he would sell so soon afterwards for the extra cash. The car that represents what we used to be. Pretty Norman and the ugly Saturn station wagon that we drove to Chicago in in the first place.

trade:off.

There are three reasons I moved back to Pennsylvania.

1) to save money, time, effort, and frustration by being closer to my family. I live in an apartment owned by my father (no rent), my mom takes me grocery shopping, and my sister helps take care of my dog when I go out of town. It's a built in support system that I desperately needed to get through my final years of school.

2) to be closer to my ailing grandmothers. If either of them had a major healthy issue while I lived in Chicago, it'd be impossible to put my life on hold and spend as much time in Pennsylvania as I'd need to in order to be the greatest service to my grandmothers, or to my family. Plus, I'd forever regret the fact that I wasn't around in their (probably) final days. Especially since they were such a big part of my youth.

3) to be able to visit my best friend Katie in Brooklyn with ease for the last year that she lives there. We have no delusions about our friendship: we will probably never live in the same city (let alone on the same street, our children being best friends, and our families growing up and old together.) Soon she will head to West Virginia and then Michigan with her husband who is pursuing a career as a doctor. But right now, single Allison, single Allison who has family in Pennsylvania, can be close enough. It's a three hour drive from my front door to hers, and I've done it four (or is it five?) times this summer already. Our friendship has always been long distance, and now the regularity with which we've seen each other has led to a gorgeous growth that never could have happened otherwise. We are truly best friends now, aside from sentimentality or a powerful past. We love each other in the present.

Reminder: these reasons.

goodness.

Oh, transitions.

I started this blog to distance myself from emotion. To post on art or books or music was so much easier than admitting pain, confusion, and loneliness. And it made me look better to everyone. I didn't look the way I felt, instead I was overcoming. I was being strong! Independent! Look at Allison, she didn't move to Chicago just for a guy and get her heart broken, oh no, she moved there, and despite the break-up, she's staying there! She's owning her life. Just look at her blog!

Pain, confusion, and loneliness.

I'm sure you know those well. They're normal for twenty+somethings. So is joy, hilarity, and freedom. It's elementary school with a bigger playground, high school with your own apartment, college without the credits.

So why pretend? In Chicago, I'm a conservative. In Pennsylvania, I'm a liberal. Time to embrace being stuck in the middle: heartbroken, but joyful. Missing and looking ahead. Oxymoron. Painconfusionloneliness/joyhilarityfreedom.Welcome to being us, this time, right now, where we are. Time to tell it like it is.

Here's the truth:

I think about life in Chicago pretty much all the time.
I love being close to my family.
I wish I was still a pack-a-day smoker.
I believe that women should be allowed to choose if they want to abort their child or not.
I am lonely.
I like Regina Spektor's new album a whole whole bunch.
I think that pre-marital sex is okay. This does not mean I condone promiscuity.
I am so incredibly grateful for Brooklyn and the people there. I'll explain later.
I love way more than I let on.

Get used to it.

instrument.

It is a strange place I find myself in these waxing days of spring. This city is my lover; its people, its trains, sidewalks, storefronts, newspaper stands, its skyscrapers reflecting sun rise and set that make the artist in me absolutely feast at the sight. It is glorious. Even just reading the word 'Chicago' sends shivers down my spine, a feeling of pride and belonging.

And yet, I am leaving. Never-mind straight A's and sassy friends, favorite restaurants and adopted ducklings, local pubs with familiar bartenders and my hair stylist Charlie. I've been dreaming about this big city life since I was a kid, and I pictured it this exact way, and yet I'm walking away. I've made the decision to move back to Pennsylvania and pursue my next dream.

Usually growth is something that happens through unforeseen circumstances. Its the way a person's heart and mind adapt and change in reaction to life. Seldom does someone actually choose to sacrifice something in order to enable growth. But that's what I'm doing. This is a life over-haul. I am making the leap from one lifestyle to another. I want the Lord to make me an instrument, and for some strange reason, the place I feel that I will be most useful, most worthwhile, and most humble in that calling is in Pennsylvania.

That means leaving my lover behind.

I will miss Chicago for the rest of my life, there is no doubt about it. But it will always represent dreams realized, lessons learned, and will forever be remembered as an adventure in its own right. I moved here for a man that I will love until the day I die, much like this city, much like this life.

... but goodness, I can't wait to be the woman I want to be. Growing and serving. My heart yearns for that grace.

miami.

citylives.