Char: (September) A Fresh Start

So, as SB so graciously pointed out to me last night, I’ve officially been in this new weird place for 30 days, minus the week of vacation.

~~~~~~~~

Time out for vacation:

So, as it turns out, Seattle is my soul city. I belong there. But, I’m also here with my soulmate, so, if I can’t have both, I guess I’ll take SB. Seattle was amazing. We ate delicious fresh food, we attended a great beautiful pinteresty outdoor wedding, we saw old friends (because we’re old enough to have old friends now), it was great. Then we got to go down to the Bay and see some extra special people, go to the Tech Museum, see the fish at the Monterey Bay Aquarium (my happy place). I hung out with an octopus for about 30 minutes. They have 4 right now. We also got to watch sharks being reintroduced into a large tank environment, which was fantastic. Then we came back and I got ferociously sick for a week and a half, and I’m just now feeling excellent again.

Justin from Pike Place Fish Throwing Guys

Ride on the Ferry with my Starbucks!

Monterey Bay

My best friends

My other best friend

My OTHER Best Friend

My OOOOOOTHER BEST FRIEND

The next ten days will start a whole new chapter of my life. First, we’re moving into a whole new place! I found a way to make my big green couch an accent piece for the new living room, and it’s going to be amazing! I can’t wait to finally settle in. I have some great things ahead. We’ll also finally be able to make a place OUR own, instead of mine, or his. I know it might be a painful process at times, but I believe in us! I’ve continued to look at different job prospects and today I’m getting a new driver’s license like an adult. I’m also going to start an official work out with a gym and everything, so someone else can hold me accountable for my physical well-being until I can figure out how to do it on my own. I’m stressed about where my life is headed, yes, but who isn’t? I think this is just how life feels. I’m going to learn a lot about myself in the next few months, and I can’t wait to see what it is!

Small victories:

•  As I understand it, our new neighborhood is a pretty high traffic trick or treating area- which is something I’ve never had before, I can’t wait!
• I have no dirty laundry in this apartment. WHAT. UP.
• While we spent more than we intended, groceries with healthy options for me are in the refrigerator! (and SB didn’t even notice that I did it. Muahaha)
• Peanut ate his food today. Thank goodness.
• Purple chair is being changed. 

Flying Kites at Sunset

Not the worst

An "Only Okay" sunset

Life could DEFINITELY be worse. I’m feeling scared, excited, and good! Let’s do this life! Off to pick out paint colors for the new chair!

Char: I Couldn't Even (#laterpost)

Literally the worst. I can't believe I let Al take over this summer. We were both having such crazy adventures, in the two most opposite ways possible. Part of my silence is due to the fact that this summer I've positioned myself to be something of a public figure to about 3,000 students, parents, and family members joining the Penn State community, so I don't want to ruin the magic of NSO for anyone who hadn't experienced it yet. So here's the short:

This summer kicked my butt in the best way ever. I've been working with Penn State Orientation (and let me take this perfect opportunity to remind anyone reading that these views are solely my OWN). I was in charge of 36 student staff members, which, while I'd love to tell everyone all the stories, it's a job. So, the most I will say is that it was definitely an exhausting and rewarding adventure. Things weren't always perfect. But at the end of the day, they survived, and I survived, and we made it. I will say that the thing I'm the most proud of this summer is not trying to make the students' experience my experience, or live vicariously through them. Sometimes it was really hard, but I had so many other things going on, that eventually, it passed.

My other role this summer consisted of being the NSO Host once a week (in a rotation of 5.) I got to stand on stage in front of 500 people once a week and saying, "Welcome to Penn State! You did it! You're here!" The first time I did it, I was Charlotte the TSC Counselor, 100% unleashed. After that I settled in a little, and calmed down a bit.

The night before the last time, i talked to my friend Kyle Pumpkinbear and he said, "Man, I miss getting to talk in front of people from college so much." During that last week, I was trying to wrap my mind around it being the end of the summer (both a sigh of sadness, exhaustion and immense relief). After talking to Kyle, I realized that I would really really miss getting to command the attention of 500 people. What a crazy and unique experience.

This summer was so packed full of experience ans things happening. I'm looking back over my shoulder trying to figure out what just happened to me and because of me and in spite of me.

I think I'm about ready for my long winter's nap.

Around week 6 of 10 this summer, I was offered an opportunity to stay at Penn State with SOTP for an extra month to help coordinate the Welcome Week activities happening all across campus, and I said yes. WHICH MEANS THAT... I'll be moving on to my next adventure on August 31, instead of Sept 30.

Char: ...Now What?

As I slowly start to separate myself and withdraw from the fierce pride that is Penn State and State College, I'm feeling incredibly challenged about where my identity with find it's strength next. If background is necessary, at the end of August, I completed by fixed-term position with Penn State Orientation, and, as planned, moved down with SB and Peanut. A few days after I got here, we jumped on a plane and went to Seattle and SF for a week, WHERE I SAW AL FOR THREE WHOLE HOURS. IT WAS GLORIOUS. GLO.RI.OUS. GLORIOUS. She looks spectacular by the way. SO much happier from the last time I saw her (three years ago?)

Every time I go back to SF, I think about how easy it would be to just drop things here and go back there. To a place where I don't have to pay any attention to social norms, where there are Safeways and Mexican Restaurants and humidity isn't a thing and most of my people. While visiting is wonderful, it always makes me sad. There are, of course, some things that I do, or have become, on the east coast, that would be hard to bring back to California. One of the greatest parts about moving was that when SB and I met people here, they accepted us for however we presented ourselves. It gave us room to grow, and for the first time in two years, we weren't around people who assumed they knew us together better than we knew ourselves. Moving gave us room to grow into our own as a couple. We also, of course, got little Peanut out of it, and I have an amazing State College Family that I miss every single day.

I wonder if thinking of it as a bookended experience is part of what's throwing me off so much. Because really, its not a bookended experience, it's my life. And now my life has moved, and I' still not in California. I go back and forth between asking myself really big, hard, scary questions, and trying to pair down and ask myself what I'm going to do in the next 30 minutes to try to make everything more manageable. I don't know the best way to do it. Maybe this is the best way to do it. Think big, work small.

I feel lost and numb, but at the same time content. There are things that my friends are doing (travelling the world, going out all the time, having babies) and I don't want any of those things yet. I just have to figure out what I do want.

I heard a really interesting TED talk on one of my drives down here in the past few months. It was about parenting. The speaker talked about how silly he thought it was that so many parents just want their children to "be happy" in life. He said, drug addicts can be happy, people breaking the law can be happy with themselves. Is that really what we mean? I've always said, that in life, I just want to be happy. But I'd rather be determined, accomplished, driven, experimental, and lots of other things- that produce many outcomes, one of which may (and should) be joy and happiness. So that's what I'm aiming for. We can't always like everything we're doing all the time. But we can do exciting scary things that result in happiness, so that's what I'm going to try to do for the next few months.

Enough for now.
Char