The Price You Pay.

Pinterest presented me with a quote (by "presented" I mean, I scrolled through Pinterest in my bed for hours to find) that captures a feeling I've been trying to articulate for a very long time. It reads:

"You will never be completely at home again, because part of your heart always will be elsewhere. That is the price you pay for loving and knowing people in more than one place."

I don't know the joy of a parent when they meet their baby for the first time. I have no clue what doctors feel when they save a person's life for the first time. Heck, I barely even know what it's like to live in the same place for more than 10 years.

But I do know that I know a wealth of beautiful, intelligent, empathetic, funny, cocky, insane, competent, lovely people. Whether it's the drunk (and incredibly honest) people on my tour, the Parisians I met in a bar off the main drag in France or just living in the 3rd largest city where I see hundreds of different people a day just on the train going to and from work, I have seen/met a surprising amount of people in my 23 years. I have seen hundreds of distinct wrinkles, heard hundreds of belly laughs, and smelled the natural (or unnatural) perfumes of hundreds of people who have lives just as complex and nuanced as my own. I've argued with men I met 20 minutes prior when they said A Hard's Days Night has no redeeming qualities. I've commiserated with women in long bathroom lines whose bladders are full of cheap whiskey, who want to get back to their friends just as much as I do thus we become friends with each other. I've learned how to say "Fuck off" in French while drinking Absinthe.

Don't get me wrong, there are days when I wonder if I'm happy without a place to call my forever home. I think, "Would having a mortgage make me happier than having a lease?" I have friends with kids and husbands and ex-husbands. When I see the look on their faces when they look at their bundles of joy or their soulmate, I always question my own life. In recent years while I'm thinking this and looking at their pictures or listening to their experiences, I start to notice something familiar. Something that I've known intimately. The glimmer in their eyes isn't just the look of a new parent or a newlywed. It's pure joy. It is the same glimmer I get when I'm improvising with people I love or in rehearsal with some of the funniest people I've had the pleasure of knowing or meeting someone from a different side of the world who I can talk to for hours. It is the look of belonging.

But with all of this comes a tinge of loneliness. Those wonderful moments of joy are scattered in with hours of mediocre moments. That's okay. That makes those big moments so much better.

It gives me solace that when I get to age or a city I want to settle down in or a person I want to settle down with, I know that I have seen as much of the world as I possibly could. I can't regret my lonely 20s. Those years shaped the confident, strong, and worldly woman that I will become. She will not apologize for taking her time. She looked into the eyes of strangers and soon after called them friends. She loved. She existed. She cared. She adored every minute of it. She LIVED.

Thanks for listening. Come back for more.

I Believe...

Here's a small list of things I believe, take em or leave em:

-Mayonnaise is nasty.

-Bacon flavored chapstick is worse.

-Shaving your legs is a tradition that was made up as another way for women to feel inferior. HOWEVER, putting my cleanly shaved legs into my bed after I have washed my sheets is orgasmic.

-Statewide Abstinence-Only sex ed is the best way to make sure your state's teen pregnancy rates skyrocket.

-Women are amazing.

-Men can be amazing.

-My friend Barbara makes the prettiest babies.

-My nieces are smarter than me already. The oldest is 7.

-Wrecking Ball is the one of the greatest pop songs of the 21st Century.

-Guns do damage that is quick and permanent. I CAN'T BELIEVE that people are so cavalier about that.

-The NRA doesn't care about your rights. They care about making money off you wanting to exercise your rights.

-French Vanilla creamer is sent from the Gods.

-Empathy is the greatest quality a human can possess.

-Paul Ryan wants to take away poor people's healthcare.

-I have some form of chronic depression or anxiety and it sneaks up on me at weird times (Ex: yesterday before Best Buds at iO Saturdays nights at Midnight. I know you haven't been yet. Just come already!).

-Anna Faris is very good.

-All of my friends are better than all of your friends.

-Friends the TV show doesn't hold up.

-The 90s weren't as cool as you think.

-The 20s weren't as cool as you think.

-The 1520s AD weren't as cool as you think.

-Cat Booty is the best thing I've ever stumbled backwards into.

-My mom is better than French Vanilla creamer.


Thanks for listening. Come back for more.

O-H

I wrote this a week ago. My feelings remain the same.***



***2 hours ago, I was on a Megabus listening to melancholy songs while staring at the Chicago skyline. Returning from Ohio, I was ready to be back to my chosen place of residence. The place I knew would be MY PLACE from the moment I stepped foot in it 8 years ago. I still feel incredibly lucky to live here but going back to Ohio brought all kinds of new feelings of gratitude and belonging.

With this visit now over, I can say that I have learned two things. 

1) Dayton, OH feels more like my home than the cornfields of New Carlisle, OH in which I actually grew up. 

New Carlisle is where I rode my bike to see my friends, had my first kiss, and felt my first real heartbreak. It's where my mother chose to raise me and my brothers and where she put her blood, sweat and tears into being a mother and a remarkable teacher. It's where I learned to act and sing. It's where I found my faith in God. It's where I met women who will be in my life forever and will always feel the most my self around. 

Dayton is where I drove my car to see my friends, lost my virginity, and dealt with multiple small heartbreaks. It's where my costume teacher took the reigns from my mother and ushered me, somehow kindly and forcefully, into a self actualizing adulthood. It's where I began my stand up and improv career. It's where I lost my faith in God. It's where I learned to sew. It's where I met another life long friend with my same name. 

Both of these places made me the woman that I am. But in one of them, I actually FELT like a woman. Dayton is truly where I "grew up". Not where I spent my childhood or turned 18. I GREW UP. I made many adult mistakes while still acting like a child. I woke up from my small town stupor and realized I don't want to be immature my whole life. I feel thankful. 

2) My home will always the people I love, not the town I'm in. 

Chicago has felt incredibly lonely at times. I'd say about 70% of my time here I have been alone. I don't mean alone as in physically. I have been surrounded by people on train, at a bar, at work while still feeling like I'm not with anyone but myself. That may sound sad. It's truly not. It's the way I prefer to be. Publicly alone. I get to think and plan and write in my head while simultaneously watching people do the same. It's something that has always made me feel very comfortable.
Ohio is so different. It's a place where you can very easily be physically alone all the time. You drive to work alone, you can live in a house alone, you can take a walk almost completely alone. It comforts a lot of my friends but wigs me the fuck out. If I ever get kidnapped and murdered, I guarantee it will be in Ohio.
Besides my distain for small town living, I found that connection with the people you do see can be so much stronger. My affection is still intact with my dearest and oldest friends. The main example from this last trip was when I got the pleasure of going to meet my best friend from high school's new baby girl, Scarlet. I went with my closest high school girlfriends and I'm telling you, I could have stayed with them forever. The laughter was loud and robust and it filled Alison's little car. The house was full of loving looks, discussion of weddings, further education and sharing of important information. I remembered why I spent so much time with these women when we were young. How they fill my heart with so much excitement for life. Part of me wanted to move back just to be close to them again. But then I remembered myself, "You hate this place and you will get snatched in a cornfield if you move back." So I hugged them all and said a silent prayer that maybe they'll take a trip up North to my new home.

When I moved away, something in my heart knew I couldn't stay in Ohio. I couldn't live my best life and grow as a person there. But something I never anticipated was how thankful I would be to go back. So elated to visit and remember where I came from, where my winding road began. The people that changed me. The people whose hearts fill mine so easily. I never knew I'd look back so fondly at the times I spent there while I also see the same people in my future.

Thanks for listening. Come back for more.