What if I am making the worst decision of my life?
Leading up to my move to Phoenix in 2021, that was the hot question of the hour. What if this is a no good, very bad, LIFE-RUINING decision?
I fretted. Big time.
But I never thought to ask: what if I am making the best decision of my life?
I am so quick to plan for things going wrong, that I often forget to imagine things going right.
Read MoreLast week, I flew east to Atlanta to see The 1975 in concert. And then drove to Nashville to see The 1975 in concert, the very next day.
This weekend, I will drive to San Diego and Los Angeles to, yes, see The 1975 in concert.
My equally-invested friend and I did these same shenanigans in 2019, bopping around to a handful of venues to bop to our favorite songs when I was but a darling 26 year-old.
But.
Read MoreEndings: I hate them.
And yet I’ve experienced a smattering of these in the last year.
These endings are what one might describe as hard. They are the tearful kinds, the closures you need, but don't want.
I left the city I called home for a decade. I moved away from the apartment that was my home-sweet-haven for more than five years. I ended projects and businesses that have been dear to my heart for years. I said goodbye to people I never wanted to say goodbye to.
These endings have been cushioned by the newness of this current chapter of my life — a new city! a new business venture! a new community! — but they still leave a void. They aren’t the endings I would have written for myself, no matter how necessary.
Read MoreI lost it.
I called my best friend crying. This was not a delicate, soft-tears sort of cry, mind you. This was a cry featuring big, sad-girl sobs.
“What if I’m not supposed to live in Phoenix? What if I’ve made the wrong decision?” I wailed.
What if I was ruining my LIFE?!
Read MoreDid you know that between April and June, rain takes a hiatus from the forecast almost entirely? I haven’t seen — or smelled — rain in the desert since March: exactly two months ago. You’d think the land would be hostile, barren, lifeless.
On the surface, it could appear that way.
On my hikes now, the leaves of the brittlebush are dry, shriveled, and, um, brittle. It spent the spring alive with color, its blooms coating the valley with a carpet of yellow. Now, though, the plant appears to be a goner, its future surely to be spent only as a tumbleweed.
Read MoreWhen I was 22 years old, I visited the desert for the first time.
A metaphorical desert, if we’re getting technical.
I was fresh out of college, starry-eyed and eager to begin my post-grad life. I had big ‘ole me-centered dreams: a shiny, brag-worthy PR job in the music industry! An apartment with an exposed brick wall that (somehow) would fit an upright piano! A committed relationship with a kind, goofy man!
I got exactly none of those things.
To summarize an entire year’s worth of emotion: I was devastated.
Read MoreBut last night was different.
Last night, I looked down and realized — WAIT A MINUTE, that glowing freeway crossing the dark swatch of undeveloped desert land: that’s my freeway. And that — that right there! — that’s my exit. And just over there — that’s my apartment complex. That’s my home!
Home.
Read MoreWhen I was 18 years old, I caved.
After years of disinterest (I mean, how good could it actually be?), I finally picked up the first Harry Potter book. I felt certain I wouldn’t enjoy it.
Within six weeks, I had finished the entire series.
With the wood quietly crackling in the fireplace, my family asleep, and the Christmas tree glowing, I remember turning the final page of the seventh book. I cried (obviously). Not only did I cry for the story itself (I understood the hype!), but I also cried because it was over.
From time to time, I still reread the series, returning to my favorite fantasyland, finding comfort in the familiarity of the characters. But these rereads will never recreate my first experience of magic.
Read MoreThis cactat was a memorial to a desert season I had walked through in my early twenties. Because it was there, in the desert, that I really began to know God as an active, personal being who — get this! — actually cared about every facet of my life: from the most mundane naivetes of 22-year-old me to the shame-soaked inner critic that soundtracked my mind in those years.
That desert season shaped me.
Read MoreLast Tuesday was National Margarita Day.
I did not, however, celebrate the holiday. Truthfully, I’ve yet to find THE Mexican place here in Phoenix. You know the one: gaudy decorations, cheap food, even cheaper margaritas.
But there’s a Mexican restaurant at the corner of Charlotte and Whitebridge in Nashville, TN.
You may have heard of it.
Read MoreTomorrow marks three months.
Three months here, sharing a zip code with Saguaros.
“So how is Phoenix?” a friend asked me over the phone as I sat on my balcony beneath glowing string lights, a pour of raspberry wine in my hand. The sun was setting, painting the eastern mountains with rosy swipes of redemption.
How has Phoenix been these last three months?
Read MoreI went on a date recently. Two glasses of Riesling, pleasant conversation, and a perfectly amicable guy — it was an altogether fine evening.
However, I wasn’t interested in a second date.
Not because of any run-for-the-hills red flags. Not because I didn’t think he was cute. Not because we didn’t get along. I simply — wasn’t interested.
There’s no better way to explain it. No fear-based avoidance of the potential for a healthy relationship. No disdain for commitment that needs a heavy round of therapy to work through. Nothing deeper than the inner sense that a second date just wasn’t necessary.
But, I said yes to getting dinner again with him.
Read MoreI’m a No Girl.
In many ways, this is a good thing. I’m able to confidently decline invitations that disinterest me.
“Want to go whitewater rafting?” No thank you, I’m comfy right here on the bank.
Read More1,631 miles.
That’s how far I am from Cinco de Mayo West Nashville, an iconic Music City institution featuring $13.99 margarita pitchers on Sundays, Mondays, and Tuesdays.
It’s been two weeks since I shared a final round of margaritas there with my people. Two weeks since I packed up a U-Haul and turned in the keys to the apartment I had called home for half a decade. Two weeks since I exchanged my Tennessee address for the desert and $3.69/gallon gas prices.
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