Loose Change

A few days ago, I celebrated my half-birthday. There was no party; I just took a while to think back on how completely different I am now than I was two years ago when I started this whirlwind of life change. A few days before the half-birthday, I jokingly said that 90% of everything has changed for me, especially in the last 18 months. Upon reflection, I’d like to up that number to about 93%. I still play cello, drink Hornsby’s, and have much love for Birkenstocks/Modest Mouse/Jane Austen. I still have Bubbles the fish (who is now nine years old…just how long do $3 fish live, anyway??) and I still crochet like a mad woman.

Right around two years ago, I made a conscious decision to make no decisions until after I turned 30. I was freaking out big time about that birthday and was feeling like a colossal failure. I didn’t want to choose a life course based on freak-out-fear, so I gave myself a good six month bubble of non-decision time. I’d just joined an orchestra (after an eight-year orchestra break). I had my long hair and had lost about 25 lbs. at that point, so I was dressed in slightly-baggy, mis-matched clothes (this would of course become more and more weight lost and much more baggier clothes before the great make-over happened). I had been stuck in a small rut for three years at that point and a rather large rut for about seven years.

So. Big changes have came along and if I were to see life snapshots from then and now, I wouldn’t believe I’d been in either life; the gap is that large. For all those who’ve helped me adjust to my constant state of death and angst, watched me cry in my beer, or who have chased off god-talk people when I was freaking out: thank you. May you always get the lollipop flavor you desire! For all those who’ve made the transition harder: don’t worry. You’ll just keep having an inclination to cut lemons right after you get paper cuts….for the rest of your life. No big deal.

And now 32 looms ahead. The Daily Adventure Force remains undimmed (and has been in constant use since I was, oh, 12 or 13 I think?). I feel like I’ve finished with the spring cleaning of my life. And I also feel I should be practicing. And I should be, yikes!

An Erinku (stolen from my “Death & Angst” book from years ago):
I’ve had that
philodendron for
twelve years.
It’s not dead.