And She's Gone

5 years of being at home here are over tomorrow. I feel like the world should stop for a day so I can think about it...reminisce, laugh, cry, be still, but it doesn't. Instead I make the drive home and spend 3 weeks in between lives.
Pardon the lack of blogging that is likely to occur in the upcoming weeks - it's time to reflect in my head and on paper and prepare myself for the craziness that will come all too soon. To sort through belongings and sell and give away. To play with my niece so much that she'll have to remember me, even though I won't see her for a very long time. To catch up with old friends and spend quality time with family...to be there just like I have been here for the last 5 years.
I will miss the lakes and trees and the fresh air, but most of all I will miss the people who have made this place home. Unless you've moved 750 miles away from where anyone knew or understood you, I'm not sure you can understand the magnitude of feeling so welcomed...
Thanks to everyone who's shared in the last 5 years of my life - I look forward to the day when our paths cross again.
See ya later, Minnesota!

5 Things

5 Things

5 Things In My Fridge
1. Soy milk
2. Avacado
3. Eggs (Cage Free/Organic!)
4. Organic Gala Apples
5. Strongbow

5 Things In My Closet
1. Clothes
2. Drying rack
3. Shoes (way too many...)
4. Iron
5. Towels

5 Things In My Purse
1. Little Nalgene
2. Bath and Body Works Antibacterial Gel (yes, I know I'm contributing to some super bacteria that will develop some day)
3. Tampon (In a green wrapper that Brandon says looks like candy...)
4. Wallet
5. Honey sticks

5 Things In My Car
1. CDs (Eric Carlson, thanks Laura!)
2. Lavendar Method wipes (So Brandon can clean when we're at stoplights)
3. Bike rack
4. Lotion (cause I'm pretty much addicted)
5. Maps (of Kansas and Minnesota - my 2 homes)

5 Things I Wish I Was Doing Right Now
1. Playing with my niece
2. Listening to someone play acoustic guitar in a coffee shop
3. Watching the new Al Gore movie about global warming
4. Getting candy at a parade
5. Not listening to Tom Shane

5 Things I Like Most About My Bedroom
1. Mr. Bear
2. My aeromatherapy lotion
3. Pictures of the boys in my life (Brandon, Jakeus, Travis...for some reason I didn't have any girl pictures up...weird)
4. The fridge (since it's 2 feet from my bed)
5. My air purifier (so I don't smell like an ashtray)

Thanks, Amy, for that wonderful waste of time.

I tag....
Berne
Jakeus
Laura

Weekend in Pictures

Mmmm...It's not Memorial Day weekend without yummy, organic watermelon!














Laura and I eating our delicious thai peanut noodle salad.













Brandon, Bill, and Laura eating on the floor because both of my tables had been sold.















Laura and Bill at the Twins game - we must be good luck because they won!













My last day with Emma was Friday - sad.

My Favorite Thursday Night Dates

Kade and Loch - they're way too cute for their own good!

so....
incredibly.......
overwhelmed...........

I need to quit reading blogs about how crazy the next 2 years of my life are going to be.

Cause it's the last day of summer,
And it will hurt you more than most
Cause you're still trying to mine for memories in a ghost
Magnet

The goodbyes and transitions continue and I can't understand why I'm so tired of people asking me if I'm excited and telling me what a great opportunity this will be.
I know it's the right thing to say.
Voicing the same response just gets tiring and it's not close enough yet that much of it is genuine.
Parents - be prepared to move a very emotional daughter.

I got my region placement!

In Between

In between is where I'll be for the next 3 months. In between apartments and jobs and cities and lives.
I'm packed enough that home doesn't feel like home anymore - it's just a messy apartment with boxes full of my stuff.
There's days I'm excited to move and be in New York but there's more days when I don't feel ready to leave here.
Ugh.
Time to go hang out with babies...

I changed my mind...here's the address for my TFA blog. I won't post anything there until the end of June probably, but I'm afraid I'll forget the url by then!
http://closingthegapinnyc.blogspot.com/

Hands down this is the best day I can ever remember,
I'll always remember the sound of the stereo,
the dim of the soft lights,
the scent of your hair that you twirled in your fingers
and the time on the clock when we realized it's so late
and this walk that we shared together.
Dashboard

In the end you always think more about the beginning. You re-live all of the good times in an attempt to hang on to them forever, and in the process the bad times seem to somehow not matter so much anymore.
I'm leaving in 12 days.
** ** ** ** ** ** **
Today I worked on setting up a blog to share my TFA experiences. I'll put up the link when it gets closer to the start of training and when I've figured out how to make it honest but somewhat anonymous to protect my school and students.
This is really happening.

The twins I nanny for have a blog!
Check em out - they're cute little buggers!

The End

The end saw less tears than the beginning.
There were no parents, trying unsuccessfully to hold back tears.
No over abundance of hugs...no standing in the parking lot waiting, hoping maybe they would come back and take me home.
No campus full of strange faces...no apprehension that I wouldn't be good enough.
Instead it was a string of what had developed to be 'our' routine. 'Our' as in this family that somehow formed over the last 5 years. There was coffee and good food and lakes and talks about the past and the future.
There were, however, no tears.
Until I hit the exit for St. Cloud and realized - it's over.
Life will never be like this again.
The lack of goodbyes ate at me for the next 60 minutes. I've always been a tearful goodbye kind of person. My mind puts on its own little power point of good and bad memories and at the end of it my face is red and my cheeks are wet but in my own strange way, I'm ready to leave. It's what I expected from this weekend, and when it didn't happen I felt a lack of closure, until I remembered a goodbye from last year.
"Life is never gonna be like this again, isn't that crazy? College is over," he thought aloud, as much to himself as me. We hugged in the kitchen of my empty house for longer than we ever had before. A year later, on the drive home from my own 'leaving' experience, I realized that the need for closure was really all in my head, perpetuated by this need to have a movie ending to every chapter in my life, when really this weekend wasn't that much different than any other weekend over the last 5 years. Relationships are not defined by goodbyes. Relationships are defined by Wednesday nights at the Northern Inn, singing along to Junction 51. By jamming in the sky lounge and staying up late to watch election results. By what happened after the meetings at conferences and long bus rides in foreign countries. By late night phone conversations and drunk bagpipe players and a boy who's unofficial spot to pass out was the hallway in front of the bathroom...the goodbye can't even come close to living up to the moments before it.
So I dried my tears and turned up the radio and alternated between preparing myself to leave in less than 2 weeks and thinking about absolutely nothing at all.

Trader Joe's opens today!!!

Impeach the President

Let's impeach the president for lying
And leading our country into war
Abusing all the power that we gave him
And shipping all our money out the door
He's the man who hired all the criminals
The White House shadows who hide behind closed doors
And bend the facts to fit with their new stories
Of why we have to send our men to war
Let's impeach the president for spying
On citizens inside their own homes
Breaking every law in the country
By tapping our computers and telephones
What if Al Qaeda blew up the levees
Would New Orleans have been safer that way
Sheltered by our government's protection
Or was someone just not home that day?
Let's impeach the president
For hijacking our religion and using it to get elected
Dividing our country into colors
And still leaving black people neglected
Thank god he's cracking down on steroids
Since he sold his old baseball team
There's lot of people looking at big trouble
But of course the president is clean
Thank God
Neil Young

I finally heard this song on the radio - Cities 97 of all places! Not that I agree with all the lyrics, but props to Neil Young (and other select artists) for actually standing up and saying something.
It gives me hope that maybe our country hasn't gone completely down the shitter.

Uhh....Duh.....HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Happy 21st to my little sister! Brings back many not so fond memories.

My only sisterly advice is stay away from drunk, middle aged bag pipe players.

THE STATE OF MINNESOTA DOES NOT NEED A NEW STADIUM, LET ALONE 3 OF THEM. QUIT WASTING THE SESSION TALKING ABOUT IT.

Okay - now I feel better.

Be here now because it'll be gone.

For once in my life I feel like I'm living for NOW instead of tomorrow. It's nice.

Then again, I feel myself stretching out every day so that tomorrow will not come, bringing with it interviews and curriculum and change and way too many goodbyes.

I Heart Minneapolis Hippies

I spent May Day weekend doing lots of "hippie" things :)
I volunteered at the Living Green expo and ate lots of organic food and learned about how we're killing the Earth and ourselves with things like pesticides and plastic.
I hung out with other hippie people in the volunteer room and ate organic carrots and drank carob soy milk.
We saw Mike Doughty amidst the smell of beer and through a haze of cigarette and pot smoke.
We went to a pot luck and ate lots of quiche and bread and sat through a self professed "hippie parade" about the beginning of a new year and the rebirth of free speech. A little boy randomly brought me a flower and said, "Happy May Day!" People danced in the streets with bare feet and the best I could do was sit back and capture the moment on film, wondering if I would ever fall in love with the culture of a city like I have with this one.
I'm left sunburned and tired, but rejuvinated.
Gringo, I thought of you lots this weekend - you would have mumbled "hippie" a lot - then I would have laughed, and you would have laughed back.
It was a weekend like all weekends should be. Stress and work free - calm and sunny. Something tells me I may be back here someday...

My Baby Sister...

I wish I could give her the world on a silver platter.
Prince charming, a good job, a nice house, and appreciative friends.
But I can't and the only other option I have is to watch and support her as she goes through the pain of figuring out 'grown up' life on her own and love her unconditionally for the choices she makes, even when they're not the choices I would make for her.

For ignoring you: my highest voices
For smiling when my strife was all too obvious
For being so disassociated from my body
and for not letting go when it would’ve been the kindest thing
Alanis

Everyday the chance to start over is closer. New people, new town, new life, new job. I'm excited for that. I worked hard for it.
But I love this city - the coops and the people and the green that is in the grass and the culture. I love the coffee shops and vegetarian restaurants and the way they're nestled in my little neighborhood so I can walk to them, passing the "Esparanza de Jesus" sign on the way. I love that I (most of the time) know where I'm going and the sounds of little kids playing and yelling in Spanish or Somalian and the way the sun shines in my apartment early in the morning.
There's not much I look forward to leaving...and even with the energy that will come from all of the beginnings, the lump down in my throat knows that maybe I'll never be ready but I'll leave just the same.

HELP!!!

Okay - the whole process of consolidating my freaking loans is going to give me an ulcer.
Can anybody give me some advice?
I have federal unsubsidized and subsidized loans, plus a SELF loan and a collegiate loan from Wells Fargo...
I don't think I can consolidate my SELF loan and Wells Fargo loan through the federal govt - crappy.
So....any ideas on how to consolidate all of them at once?
I know to look for a fixed interest rate...

No parachutes no safety nets here
One foot on the water to face these fears
I'm coming out strong like I can't be wrong
I said "hey, I won't fall in the middle"
Mat Kearney

I want it to be as simple as yes or no...instead it's full of maybe's and at the middle of it all is the most honest and unconditional friendship I've ever experienced.
It almost hurts more when there's no drama...no anger...only questions with no answers and an ever aproaching departure date...the gradual end of something we've spent 2 and a half years fighting for and the thought of someday waking up and being without my best friend.