Music City, Shmusic City

Like Mama says, "I am officially not 22 anymore."

I have reached the end of the road with this last move to Nashville. It's gotta end. I'm beat. There is no more energy left for this journeying, wandering, just-travelin'-thru vagabond way of life -- that on a good day, could possibly be construed as living the dream -- all this hard work to get what you need to be able to look yourself in the mirror, to put the past behind you, to make a difference and feel alive and be loved.

Maybe life was easier just pretending like I was happy than it is when I'm actually trying to do the things that make me happy?  I didn't dream about taking a 50% paycut into poverty, or of an endless merry-go-round of moving boxes, shmoozing, and bad accents. Really bad accents.

Maybe it's just the curse of Valentine's Day? I went to my first interview in 4 years, and was offered the job within an hour -- for less money than I've ever made as a post-grad (even less than I made in the period of my life I used to refer to affectionately as "When I Made No Money"), but in an industry I never had the balls to pursue a career in before. Such is the dilemma of TV news. To celebrate/grieve I took myself on a date. First I went to this cafe in a really cute, young, hip neighborhood for a slice of cake and coffee, and called my brother in Seattle. At this moment, I told myself, it is so fun to be me sometimes.

Then I called for a cab and waited outside, freezing and bored, watching couple after couple after couple after couple walk by, keeping each other warm on their way to and from romantic things, and I wanted to barf all over the slushy sidewalk. Saw a movie. The movie theatre was completely packed, except for this one weird seat that was completely alone and isolated from other seats, and empty. Then I missed the bus home, at night, in a town where I am the only person without a criminal record to even ride the bus. I realized I forgot my hat and gloves somewhere along the way (sigh). But there! A minimall in the distance?  The smell of Starbucks, a lighthouse beckoning. I ordered some weird green tea infused drink, it was disgusting, it was expensive, it was the last straw. I chugged it, walked outside, turned my face up to the snow and in a sudden explosion of blinding self-pity, balled my eyes out.

More humiliation ensued the next day, when I got to pee in a cup for a hot guy in scrubs, who also had to flush the toilet I just gone #1 in... drug test for my new job (keep your fingers crossed). Followed by trudging down a muddy state road, facing an onslaught of horn-honking despite my totally non-sexual corporate business attire (a now very dirty gray silk Banana suit and white wool coat), eventually ruining my shoes and missing the bus AGAIN. I sat at the wrong stop. The stop I should have been sitting at was approximately 100 feet away. The bus comes once an hour. I walked to a Jack in the Box in the distance and gorged myself. Back at the right bus stop, I fell asleep in the winter sunshine and waited. And thought:

Have I been measuring the journeys of my life in mileage?

In the past four months, I have burned through money that took me three years to save. I've got some great passport stamps to show for it... But the biggest chunk was sunk into rent on a bedroom that doesn't have a door or a window or even floor-to-ceiling walls, in my "fabulous" new downtown city loft with exposed brick and skyscraper views. I bought my first bed, and now I have to buy my first car. I have a new gym, I have a new grocery store (for fresh produce anyway, and the Dollar General for everything else), a new 0% alcohol routine for getting through the day. I washed that man right outta my hair, I took a glorious bite out of the whole world, I met Prince Charming at a party in San Francisco and left it up to fate.  Planes, trains, automobiles; corporate ladder-climber, unemployed but unbothered, poker-faced interviewee; student, teacher, volunteer; local, expat, tourist.  Round and round we go. I have a screw loose.

But not much has changed. It's just like it was when I was 4 years old. And 6 years old. And 7. And 8. 11. And a lot like when I was 14 and we moved twice. Oh and 21. No matter what I do, I am still always "The New Girl," for better or worse. I don't know if anyone else gets that. You can spend your whole life trying to be someone who belongs somewhere, anywhere, until pretty soon you belong everywhere, nowhere. 

Or alternately, and more universally -- is facing your fears the only way to happiness? The things that always always always scared me about having to be a grown-up "woman" someday were the prospects of getting into college, getting a real job, doing my own taxes, childbirth, and the possibility of having to kill my own spiders. At 25 and 1/2, I'm totally fine with finally having conquered the first three (in your face IRS!), and calling it a day.  But the things that always scared me about my actual life -- the things that made me "adaptable" and yet OCD as hell -- were the moving, moving, moving. So I wonder sometimes if the 12-year-old-me would be proud of my choices in life, or just my eyeshadow collection. I wonder if I keep moving because I don't know what else I'm supposed to do with myself, or if I don't know how else to prove myself to myself.

I slept on the couch the entire first week in Nashville, feeling wonderfully free and strong, trying not think about how much I missed sitting by the fire at my parents' house, trying not to worry how I was going to put food on the table, trying to put my big girl boots on and make myself get off the couch and go out there and show 'em what I've got. And I think I've found just the right place for feeling like that.  I mean, it kinda sounds like a country song doesn't it?

Comments

[mzmeg]

your life is a country song. but a dixie chicks song, or loretta lynn. i have some feedback for you:
1) riding the bus can be the most daunting and humbling experience of living in a city, especially when combined with dry-clean-onlys and rain. but it's important as it seperates the assholes from those of us that need to get from point a to point b on seventy-five cents. kudos, lady

2) i am horrified that the movie was packed. it's obvious that nashville is NOT the place for me when a hugh grant romantic-barfady is oversold weeks after its release date. i can't get over this fact and might not come to visit.

3) i'm not the expert on tv jobs but i've earned my ph.d. in low wages. you'll make it work, mama. just make sure you get yourself another hustle soon so you're not trapped paycheck-to-paycheck in any company. with a couple-a shifts at another low paying gig, you'll notice significantly how your attitude will shift to confidence, not needing only one job in lieu of starving, you can say "no" to things that are unreasonable.

all-in-all i'm so proud of you, taking a big ol' bite out of TN and telling yourself, I WILL find a grocery store, job, bus stop, hugh grant movie, gym, apartment, bed and then doing them all in the time it takes most people to switch their costco membership.