April in Transition

As I sit here staring out my bedroom window at the sliver of Minnesota sky I can see, I'm noticing a trend in my life over the last several years. April, for me, has always been a time of terrible and challenging and wonderful transition that naturally forces contemplation.

Do you ever feel like you have those times? My year seems so seasonal. I'm always giddy in December and content in August and short-tempered in November. April always forces me to take a hard knock or two and learn a good lesson. 

My beloved boss, Seth, is leaving my company...his last day is Friday, but our last day in the office together is tomorrow, due to my upcoming trip. He's been offered a professional opportunity he would be a fool not to pursue, and I'm ecstatic for him and his family to start a totally exciting new chapter. Selfishly, though, I'm devastated. Like, cry-in-the-bathroom-at-least-twice-daily devastated. My role with my company has changed so much already in the last four months--with him out the door, the ambiguity and uncertainty that I thought had cleared from my professional future is only amplified, instead. I'm losing my favorite companion and a mentor that I truly didn't appreciate until I knew he was going to be gone. 

This time last year, the "career" tenet of my life couldn't have looked more different. It was stable, peaceful, and satisfying in a way I had never really known as an adult. Instead, last April, my personal life was a shambles. I got dumped by the guy I thought I was going to marry, and the entire trajectory of my life shifted. I guess it's payback for the three separate Aprils in college when I was the one ending relationships...

The April before Jon dumped me, I had to face the hard truth that I absolutely hated and would never be happy in my job at Ernst & Young. Given I had started that job planning to make it my professional home for life, that realization rocked and shifted my world as well. And before that, all the other Aprils of undergrad and high school, just seem to me to be replete with stress and struggle and studying for finals. 

So what is it, April? Maybe it's something to do with spring...a spring-cleaning for the soul, of sorts. Maybe it's that, every winter, I hunker myself down and hibernate for awhile and let my dreams and plans and future take shape. I get complacent and comfortable with where my life is going. And it feels like the second I do that, those dreams of the future come crumbling down, blown away by spring wind, washed down the drain by April showers. I always find myself learning lessons, this time of year. To value my friends and family more. To speak up for myself. To be unafraid to admit my own unhappiness. To maybe skip fewer classes or take better notes in Managerial Economics. To accept the love I know I deserve but to be fair when I know I can't give others the love they deserve. 

And with Seth's imminent departure, I'm sure that I have more hard lessons around the corner. I'm going to hold his role in the interim, and possibly longer, if I can prove myself worthy and capable. I'm going to face more challenges in an effort to be taken seriously and respected and treated as an equal. I'm going to have to re-assert my desire and need and craving for balance in life and work. Most significantly, I'm going to have to adapt to a work environment lacking in his IM witticisms, companionable, unmotivated-to-actually-work coffee runs and cute children popping by every so often. It's weird for me to think that when I get back from Paris, he'll just be gone.

I guess I have to keep reminding myself that every year without fail, I've found that the adage holds true and April showers bring May (or, at any rate, eventual) flowers. My challenges always yield something worthwhile. Here's to 2015 proving the adage right yet again. 

Dear guy in the blue gingham shirt...

Hi. How’s your day? If it's anything like your afternoon last Thursday, which looked to me like it was pretty good—leaving work at 4pm, windows down and sunroof open, just enjoying some Classical Minnesota Public Radio in traffic on 94-W...then it must be going well. I liked how your shirt color-coordinated with your Mazda...nothing like a guy rocking the gingham in early spring to make my heart skip a beat. I also liked the moment of eye contact and adorable smile you gave me when we realized we were both listening to MPR. Pretty sure that Classical MPR wouldn’t be the only thing we had in common...

Bummer that you exited on 5th…I felt like we had a really good thing going. Looking forward to potential future traffic jams, where we can discuss Orchestra Hall’s spring programming through our open windows. Or, you know, just grab a latte at Spyhouse and discuss all the other things I’m sure we’ll have to talk about.

Til then, keep an eye out for the girl in the gray dress driving the white Toyota…I exit on 11th Street and I’ll keep my classical on extra-loud so you don’t miss me.

Yours affectionately,

Lizzie

(Sarcasm, mostly. But just in case…any Minneapolitans know a guy with an affinity for Tchaikovsky and J.Crew button-downs driving a Mazda? Hook a single girl up.)

ghosts

It's a funny thing, having lived so much life in Minneapolis. I've built myself a city that's haunted by my past self. Selves, even. I drive around or walk here and there, and most of the time, I stay in the present...focused on getting to the store, making it to happy hour, or not being late to the gathering. Sometimes, though, I get taken off-guard, and that's when the ghosts creep in. 

It happens to me at work, sometimes. I spent a weekend in St. Paul with the Band of the Fighting Irish for the Frozen Four once. I now park at the hotel the band stayed at, and we have work happy hours at the bar where the official pep rally was held. Sometimes, I sip my beer and look up and can see myself, 30 pounds thinner from mono and a flirtation with an eating disorder, clutching a piccolo and wearing a hockey jersey so big it could drown me. I had my first pair of skinny jeans on, and I never considered that the glittering, glassy building just across the street would one day be the source of my professional fulfillment. 

Restaurants haunt me. The tiny taco bar where my parents took me for my 25th birthday while he was at a class he hated, where he took me mere days before we broke up and sat at the table on the front porch. I've come dangerously close to car accidents when the ghost of that embattled couple catches me off-guard there. The window tables at Chino Latino will never cease to draw my eye, an old Lizzie trying to cheer up her depressed boyfriend with s'mores and the cheesiest jokes. And Culver's...Culver's will forever be the road trip food that conjures the old two of us, leaving our ButterBurgers and chicken tender memories along I-94 en route to weddings, football games, training.

Crave still echoes for me with the devil-may-care laughter of my mother, godmother, sister and cousins on a girls' day that included one too many lemon drop shots. Pizzeria Lola will always trigger memories of cat plates and photo booths and my dad's "lack of a sweet tooth." 

The corner booth in the bar at the Smack Shack is redolent with memories of Kaitlin, a bartender with a sense of humor, and a coloring-book kids' menu placemat. 

It's the apartments, though, that are the true graveyards for me. Every time I drive past Laurel Village, I count down the corner windows from the roof, 25 down to 19, and look to see if the lights are on. Sometimes I swear I can see my past self out of the corner of my eye. Biting back tears of frustration with EY and letting that view...god, that view...be the balm that soothed the angst of a brand-new stab at adulthood. Lit up for a party that brought the weirdest, most electric mixes of people together. 

Or that shithole on the corner of Nicollet and First...the white-washed brick, the vagrants drifting across the street. The rows of tall, narrow windows, behind which I know the radiator squeaks and the floorboards squeak and the faucets all squeak. The streaky windows I peered through, trying to spot my apartment in their vista because I was so besotted with the boy who came up behind me and hugged me close and made me think this was forever. 

222 is still the only place I know I'll always see myself. Leaning up against the corner of the railing on that rooftop deck. Hot pink gym shorts on, taking a day of actual PTO to "finish up the move." Waiting anxiously for him to get home so we could swim and decide where to order takeout from--we hadn't unpacked all the way, the place was too new to cook there. I remember the feeling of the concrete burning my bare feet, and watching the passers-by look up at me. In my mind, I was having a Princess Jasmine moment...being on the inside, with them looking up and wanting in too. Now I'm back on the outside and I know how much misery was on its way for that girl on the deck, and I'd never want to be anywhere but on the outside looking in. 

Sometimes I think about the ghosts I'm creating right now. I dream ahead to a day five, ten, fifty years down the road when I drive up to my building from work. I look at it through those far-away eyes and wonder who I'll see when I look at those windows on the top floor someday.

I like to think that I'll remember this place as the one where I put down my roots and took some time to grow back my wings. 

Words that aren't mine.

Two things I've read/heard lately that have stuck with me: 

"I swear to God, I'll never understand

How you can stand there, straight and tall

And see I'm crying...and not do anything at all."

--from "See I'm Smiling," Jason Robert Brown's "The Last Five Years"

Static

Well, Old Flame, the fire’s out.
I miss you most at the laundromat.

Folding sheets is awkward work
Without your help. My nip and tuck
Can’t quite replace your hands,
And I miss that odd square dance
We did. Still, I’m glad to do without
Those gaudy arguments that wore us out.

I’ve gone over them often
They’ve turned grey. You fade and soften
Like the hackles of my favorite winter shirt.
You’ve been a hard habit to break, Old Heart.

When I feel for you beside me in the dark,
The blankets crackle with bright blue sparks.

Barton Sutter

Thankful.

Tis the season, after all, to express my gratitude, and so here it goes: a post that is in no way intended to be humble-braggy, or clichéd-cheesy, or over-the-top. I'm just insanely fortunate and the more I stop to reflect on that, the warmer-fuzzier I feel. 

I am thankful, first and foremost, for my family. My amazing, insane, quirky and close-knit family. I'm thankful that we are us. Our shenanigans, inside jokes, supportiveness and complete, bone-deep appreciation for each other have never felt more important or valuable to me than this year. I've taken my family for granted for so long, because I just figured everyone had families like this...so replete with love and care that it was almost an afterthought. This year, I know that's not the case, and I am so grateful that I have a family I always have chosen and will always choose over just about everyone else in the world. 

I'm thankful for my grandma. Grandma Lo has always secretly been my favorite, partially because of her appreciation for the American Girl dolls of my childhood, and partially because she just seems like what a grandma should be. My Grandpa Leo passed away on the night of Thanksgiving last year, and this year has been hard for Grandma Lo without him. It has, however, brought the best of her extended family together to surround her in his absence. Whether it was Friday afternoon wine after work, Sunday Funday with the best aunts and cousins, or field trips, hosting, and adventures, I've built such a close, loving relationship with her this year.

I am thankful for a job that has completely changed my outlook on professional satisfaction. This time last year, I was enjoying three weeks of funemployment and "detoxing" from a job that truly was toxic for me. Fast-forward, and I have a job that I am really good at, that couldn't be more suited to my weird blend of strengths or force me to overcome my weaknesses more effectively. I have a boss who appreciates me and what I contribute, and shares my sense of humor to an almost-eerie T. Recently, I was surprised with a new position, one that puts me years ahead of where I thought I'd be on the career path, and it is so humbling and encouraging that people high-up in the company believe in me and what I can do. I wake up every day completely content with my job...which I never thought would be the case. It is so intensely satisfying. 

I am thankful to have surrounded myself with a network of friends up here in the Cities and all over the country who are just about the greatest. I really needed my friends this year as I floundered through grieving a relationship, getting back on my feet, and becoming my own person again, and my friends were there for me through every step of the process. They listened to me weep over margaritas, distracted me when I got down in the dumps, and applauded every step forward I took, no matter how small or insignificant. They make me laugh, they let me cry, they force me to try harder and they let me be myself. They are the best reflection of who I am and want to keep being. 

Most importantly, I am thankful for the person I am becoming. 2014 has been a tumultuous year for me and for my sense of self. I started the year being systematically broken down by someone whose role in my life should have been to build me up, and as a result, I grew more and more directionless. I questioned my worth, my integrity, and just about every aspect of my personality that I had ever thought was right or good or positive. It was unhealthy in every way. 

Now, I'm getting back to a place where I can see myself through clear eyes. I am not perfect. There are a lot of aspects of who I am that could be improved, and I like to think I'm working on those as I go along. But I am a fundamentally good, warm, vibrant, worthy person, and what I have to offer is not to be scoffed at, beaten down or stifled to suit someone else's perception of how I should be. I'm re-developing my tenacity, my bullheaded optimism, and my unbridled excitement about life and its myriad delights. I have stopped feeling shame for loving what I love, I'm done apologizing for being myself, and I'm rediscovering the strength of character that will keep me from ever letting another person convince me I'm worthless.

To steal an utterly ubiquitous Camus quote, "In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer." On Thanksgiving 2014, amidst everything else I have to appreciate, every blessing I'm counting (and counting again, like any good accountant), I am thankful to my core for my rediscovery of that invincible summer, of my invincible spirit. Here's to you and yours...may we all remember to appreciate the best in others, in our circumstances, and in ourselves this year.