It's been a while since I wrote, but here I am now! Thanks to T. for mentioning she was looking for a post- it got me moving on this post, which I've been thinking about for a few weeks.
I'm still in the middle of a transition- I've started my job in the new, academic hospital ER, but am still a week away from living in my final abode (for now!) in Seattle. So much has changed though. I'm no longer living with a sort of crazy lady (four page diatribe on whether a door should be open or closed, anyone? Anyone? :), I'm not working nights, and I'm enjoying my Seattle friends and environment the way I've been envisioning for, oh, ten years or so! Hikes, runs, rooftop dinners, smiles at the grocery stores, kind compliments from complete strangers, wandering around the campus of my alma mater, now older and (wiser??) more aware of the world, but still SO happy to be home. Because being here feels like home.
Example- I'm taking a lot of non-PTO time off for my brother's wedding, moving my stuff to Seattle from the East, and a dear friend's wedding, and so the week I come back, I'm working FIVE shifts in a row. Now normally, this would send me into a panic, because there was always somewhere else I wanted to be, but strangely, while the work will be long and exhausting, I don't begrudge the time I'll spend doing it. Also, I'll need the money after all my time off! But I'm happy to be here, and I feel content, and it is such an unreal, unusual feeling for me.
My whole life, I've moved. Moving has been what defined my family and me as a person. I always had the knowledge that I wouldn't be staying "here" -wherever "here" happened to be at the time- and that sense of impermanence permeated my sense of "me-ness." But being here in Seattle, because I choose this place, has changed that, I think (we'll give it a few more months to make sure it has really taken hold!). It doesn't hurt that the weather is gorgeous, but what has really changed is me.
So I'm reveling in the sun, smiling at strangers (who smile back!), going for runs with the Olympics in one direction and the Cascades in the return, hiking the ridges and peaks of my home state, and working in an ER that, for all its quirks and issues, feels like a place I could settle for a while.
There are so many quotes about the Wanderer and the Homecoming in literature going back to the beginnings of oral storytelling, and there is no way I could hope to top the eloquence of Homer, or Faulkner, or Chopin, or even Cheryl Strayed, but I feel a kinship with them, because I am finally content where I am, and happy to wake up each morning, knowing I'm home.
I'm still in the middle of a transition- I've started my job in the new, academic hospital ER, but am still a week away from living in my final abode (for now!) in Seattle. So much has changed though. I'm no longer living with a sort of crazy lady (four page diatribe on whether a door should be open or closed, anyone? Anyone? :), I'm not working nights, and I'm enjoying my Seattle friends and environment the way I've been envisioning for, oh, ten years or so! Hikes, runs, rooftop dinners, smiles at the grocery stores, kind compliments from complete strangers, wandering around the campus of my alma mater, now older and (wiser??) more aware of the world, but still SO happy to be home. Because being here feels like home.
Example- I'm taking a lot of non-PTO time off for my brother's wedding, moving my stuff to Seattle from the East, and a dear friend's wedding, and so the week I come back, I'm working FIVE shifts in a row. Now normally, this would send me into a panic, because there was always somewhere else I wanted to be, but strangely, while the work will be long and exhausting, I don't begrudge the time I'll spend doing it. Also, I'll need the money after all my time off! But I'm happy to be here, and I feel content, and it is such an unreal, unusual feeling for me.
My whole life, I've moved. Moving has been what defined my family and me as a person. I always had the knowledge that I wouldn't be staying "here" -wherever "here" happened to be at the time- and that sense of impermanence permeated my sense of "me-ness." But being here in Seattle, because I choose this place, has changed that, I think (we'll give it a few more months to make sure it has really taken hold!). It doesn't hurt that the weather is gorgeous, but what has really changed is me.
So I'm reveling in the sun, smiling at strangers (who smile back!), going for runs with the Olympics in one direction and the Cascades in the return, hiking the ridges and peaks of my home state, and working in an ER that, for all its quirks and issues, feels like a place I could settle for a while.
There are so many quotes about the Wanderer and the Homecoming in literature going back to the beginnings of oral storytelling, and there is no way I could hope to top the eloquence of Homer, or Faulkner, or Chopin, or even Cheryl Strayed, but I feel a kinship with them, because I am finally content where I am, and happy to wake up each morning, knowing I'm home.
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