[Alternately titled: Story, The Second: The Girl Who Moved To Washington State]
It began simply. A direct message on Twitter first, followed by texts; those texts, in turn, begat plans. With those plans came anxiety and apprehension – I didn’t know you, not your face or your voice or anything else, and I wasn’t sure I was ready to – but also something exciting, a strange and unexpected hope hovering quietly on the horizon. And then we met, conversed and laughed oh so easily, and hours bled across hours. (Evaporating time would become a recurring phenomenon for us.) Leaves boughed low with the brilliant yellow-green of growth, the trail we were traipsing just muddy enough that we each brought a bit of it with us into the evening. An afternoon turned into three days. And then you left.
You came, and then you left. Physically, anyway. You left a piece of yourself here, perhaps wholly unintentionally at first, but daily tethered were we by texts, emails, phone calls when you weren’t sure you could or wanted to keep going, when you wanted to hear my voice, when you wanted to pretend to be upset I was standing with my feet in the Pacific and you weren’t.
But ride off, you did – as you had to, and as I was excited for you to, even as I realized missing you had already most likely become inevitable. Pushed and pulled pedals through the miles of fatigue you insisted on spending yourself on, losing yourself in – and that was your summer. My summer was likewise a blur – of legs treading trails, ogling waterfalls, embracing a new level of busy, but also laden with anticipation, this adorable pterodactyl niece on the way, training for races I wasn’t sure I could really run, a friendship steadily deepening with daily exchanges, so many changes on the horizon.
Some things impending don’t need a name, but we tried anyway: a white whale, an albatross, separate souls adrift in the same sea. Writers both, we’d each our own heads to lose ourselves in with little effort. I tried to think it was nothing, knew it was something; you said you weren’t sure it could be anything, even as you routinely acted as if it were everything.
We staged a great road trip adventure (complete with exclaiming acronym!) and snagged weekends thereafter, kidnapped them from our respective schedules. I fell in love with a small town nestled beneath some of the most stunning mountains I’ve ever seen, and you kept finding ways to keep me there. Thanksgiving became a three-week festivity, lingering nearly to Christmas. Your landlord joked I’d moved in; my friends wondered if I was ever coming back to Portland. What had been a someday, maybe fell instead toward when?
I came home – or to what has these past four years been home – and you followed only a few days later. Co-workers were met, and then a few weeks later, family introduced. Packing became my daily evening ritual; each box sealed was another step from before to after, the unsteady in-between-times past to this happily unwritten present: exciting new terrain to navigate and explore. There are plenty of questions, yes, but it seems like maybe there are just as many answers, even if we haven’t yet unearthed all the right words for them.
The change of address forms are through; this week is my last here, though I’ll surely be back to visit my beloved and eccentric Portlandia, to hug the bodies belonging to the faces of those I can count on missing terribly, to frequent favorite haunts and all the best coffee shops.
In a week, I’ll again be a Washingtonian, nearer those snowy peaks and cold mountain lakes. In a week, I’ll have traded the bustling city streets of Portland for the hard-packed and secluded trails of Wenatchee foothills. In a week, I’ll have traded this stretch of Columbia for that. In a week, I’ll be with you – and for the first time, I won’t just be visiting.
WHA? This is lovely. And exciting. I can’t wait to read more. xo
i predict an epic summer hike.
Oh! Oh my! Big changes!
(I feel like we haven’t talked in forever – at least now you’ll only be four hours away instead of eight.)
Hugs to you! Can’t wait to hear more.
Exciting stuff!
Hooray for both of you!
oh man, shari is slowly and steadily kidnapping the entire internet! my envy of all y’all cannot be contained.
Oh, so happy for you! I can’t wait to read the rest of this story.
Ooh, what a deliciously scary-exciting time! There’s nothing quite like the first time you realize you don’t have to pack to go home, because you’re already there. Enjoy!
My heart is full of happy for you, friend.
xoxo
EEEEEE! Is for EXCITING! :)
WAAAAAAAAAAH don’t leave me!!!!!!! :) Okay, now I’ll be mature. I’ll miss you like crazy, but I’m glad you feel good about where you’re going! Loves.
Girl, you are full of surprises! Sounds like they are all good though. Can’t wait to hear more!
Oh, this is wonderful. So excited and happy for you!
This gave me chills, as usual.
So so so so happy for you, love.
Don’t forget about our European single-ladies trip this fall. So happy for you girl.
(also: i almost cried while reading this)
Eeeeeeeee! I’m so, so, so excited and happy for you!
xoxo
I’m happy that this is trending happier. I’m one of those people who needs sunlight to be normal. In the absence of the literal kind, I’ll take the figurative version.
So I hope you did the love essay, seeing that you seem to have a full pot of love. I was just scraping at the browned bits at the bottom of mine. Deglazing. I used wine to do it. Ha! Shallots! Butter! Pan-sauce!
Wait…you’re moving??? YOU’RE MOVING! YAY! How exciting 2012 is going to be for you!
Yes, I AM kidnapping the entire internet! Who’s next??
Shari – I vote yes. But, umm, can we screen the people we kidnap relocate somehow?
A whiskey tax, maybe?
(That ‘kidnap’ was supposed to be struck-through. Stupid WordPress.)
I am just getting caught up on my Reader, but this made me so happy! What an exciting time for you! Enjoy all that it brings, and live in the moment. You deserve the happiness.
Seems fitting that I found out about your move through Fitocracy before I read about it here. SO EXCITING! And ballsy. Very ballsy.
I am just now catching up on my reader as I was gone (to Germany) over the holidays. I am beyond happy for you, Kerrianne…. but you’d better send me your new address soon :)
WTFF! Girlie, I’ve been following along (but not commenting; it requires me to get my arm out from underneath the covers, and that feels like too much effort some days), and I was blown away by your cantaloupe-sized balls when I read this. Also, you live in my freaking hometown! That is so awesome. I love that place, and I love you, and I love that you’re doing what you want and grabbing life by the balls. (There are a lot of balls in this comment.) What else is there?
Just awesome.