The Return of Miss Monday!

Hello girls, it's Monday! And wow, I haven't typed that for a long time.

This feels a little strange, just because the last time I did regular personal blogging it was with a group of strangers who were trying to get to know one another, rather than my close group of friends trying to stay in touch. I'm excited about doing it, though.

Katie - To echo what I said when we talked earlier this week, hang in there. It's important to remember that relationships and emotions defy easy definitions and labels. I think it's good that you and Matt will continue to keep in touch and remain a part of each other's lives through this because meaningful relationships don't and shouldn't have to be necessarily romantic ones. You'll both be in my thoughts and prayers. Hang in there.

Maggie - I order you to find some time to sleep. That's how that works, right?

As for me, well, I will do what I've been doing pretty frequently, actually, and avoid answering the real question here to answer the exact question that was asked:

How was my week?

My week was pretty par for the course as weeks go lately. I worked 20 hours at the library, and they were a busier 20 hours than they sometimes are. This past Wednesday was our kick-off for the Bowling Green Youth Community Reads program, which meant that my weekly buddy reading program got taken over, as it so often does, and the mayor came to read a proclamation and name Wonder by RJ Palacio the official book of the month.

And guys, this book has taken over my life. Which I wouldn't mind so much if I actually liked it as much as everyone around me does. But while I think the book has a lot to offer in terms of issues and starting important discussions with school-age kids, I don't think the book is all that well written, and I have a lot of problems with the way that it's told, but that is not an opinion I'm really sharing a whole lot of at the moment.

But yeah, between making booklists and prepping displays and directing a Readers Theatre performance based on it, this book has taken over my life, and this past week in particular has been All Wonder, All the Time.

And when I'm not at the library, I'm doing administrative stuff with Horizon, particularly around our summer production of Aladdin, Jr! Between the library and HYT and my other little jobs and projects here and there, my life is pretty full and pretty busy.

And that's what I focus on when people ask how I'm doing because that answers the question but avoids the real question, which is, How is life, and honestly, the answer to that is:

Life is terrifying right now.

For those of you who may not know, Chase moved to New York in January. He got hired as the Multimedia Coordinator (Intern) at the Frost Valley YMCA in the middle of the Catskill mountains, a 15 month internship that will hopefully turn into a full-time job, and I'm supposed to join him this summer. That is the plan. My lease is up on the 25th of July, and that is when I will be moving out to New York.

Which becomes terrifying very quickly because I don't have a job or a place to live, and finding one is a process complicated by the fact that I live 10 hours away. It would be easier if Chase had an apartment of his own, but he doesn't, he lives on the camp, an option not available to me because I don't work there and there's barely enough room for him.

So I have this list of things that need to be accomplished before the end of July, and it is a list that terrifies me and regularly makes me question my supposed identity as an adult. Because there are days when I sure don't feel like one.

And I feel like I get asked 12 times a week what my plan is, and the truth is, I have no flippin' idea. Weren't we supposed to get a membership card and a guidebook at some point? How To Be An Adult? With a checklist and an upgrade and a big kid job all stuffed into one of those big manila envelopes? I think mine got lost with my Hogwarts letter.

I have days where I feel very adult, where I spend the morning answering emails for HYT and working my way through administrative duties, and then I run errands and pay bills before going to work a 6 hour shift at the library, and come home and unwind at the end of the day. And then I have days like Friday, where I had nothing on my schedule, and I stayed in my pajamas until noon and spent the day cross-stitching and writing and watching Boy Meets World, and I just don't feel like that's the kind of day that adults have, you know?

Anyway, now that I've gone and had a mini-existential crisis on this, my first blog post, I think I'll wrap it up. I am excited about going to live in New York with my fiancee, I just have to find that excitement under all the paralyzing terror. I am also excited about this project, and I can't wait to hear how the rest of you are doing.