I will stay if you let me stay, and I will go if you let go

I'm sitting here with the window open, looking into the forest that surrounds one side of my building, and the cool air reminds me of these nights I would spend sitting by my window when I was around 9, feeling the air and trying to understand why the gentleness of the wind seemed to suspend time and make everything beautiful. These were the times that I pondered the future, love, and existence, with my 9-year-old mind often feeling years beyond its time. That was a year of firsts, and so, too, has been this one. It has been over a decade since I was that little girl looking out of the window into the dark night and wondering what the world had in store for me, and I still do not know, but I see a trajectory that makes me feel safe.

I had a set of rare moments yesterday leading up to the rarest moment of all, and all of a sudden a huge part of my life was at once over and fulfilled. I'm extremely overwhelmed by it all, and its significance, despite the barrage of reminders, emails, shout-outs, and phone calls, hasn't quite set in. It is exceptionally emotionally difficult to have experienced the last two weeks in the shadow of events to come in the next month or so. There is too much finality after the changes that are about to happen. I have no idea what will be left of me afterwards.

Young Marble Giants: Final Day
Beat Happening: Cry for a Shadow

I've never had the vocabulary to succinctly express what that particular part of my life has meant to me, but I can translate some of what I feel through the art I consume. I don't want my memories of the last 8 years to be fragmented by my transition from one role and identity to another.

Iron & Wine: Weary Memory
All-time Quarterback: Why I Cry (Magnetic Fields cover)
The Magnetic Fields: If You Don't Cry

I feel sort of suspended in a moment that I can't escape. It is as if this moment has always been happening and I am merely reliving it. I always imagined the suspension of this moment to accompany some kind of mourning or sense of loss, but it's really hard for me to associate anything I feel now with lack or departure.


The Magnetic Fields: You're My Only Home
Rise Against: Swing Life Away

The last thing I will say is this: whether or not you have shared or helped create some of my memories of the last near-decade of my life, I think that anyone can appreciate the value of community, responsibility, and belonging. Community is sometimes about the repression of difference, and at other times about its celebration. I've experienced both, but mostly the latter in the hoopla about yesterday. I'd like to think I've learned a little bit more than mere tolerance, but I know that I wouldn't even have had that if I had not participated in a community that made diversity its goal.

Less Than Jake: All My Best Friends are Metalheads

That's all for now. I have a lot of sleep and work to catch up on.