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Les-Cadeaux

I’ve never written a guest entry before. I’m not quite sure how to do it, to be honest. I think I am supposed to start out by mentioning how awesome I find Jana to be, so I will: she is VERY, VERY awesome. So awesome that only a few months after the birth of this journal, she is writing with poise, confidence and insight. So awesome that I keep getting hits on my site from her link to me. So awesome that she has let me be a guest writer on The Gumboots, an honor of which I am quite proud.

I haven’t met Jana in real life yet, but I know that when we finally do meet this summer at JournalCon, it will be love at first sight. I already feel comfortable emailing with her, and I have loved reading and hearing about the changes she is planning on making in her life. The girl is Getting Her Shit Together, and she’s job-hunting and looking for a new ‘burg to call home, and wheels are in motion and things are happening. And I have no doubts in my mind that Miss Jana will end up exactly where she is meant to be.

It’s hard to know where that is, though. But in my experience, the right place will find you at the right time if you just listen to your heart and do what feels right. It may not make sense, but I say throw your dice high in the air and see where they fall.

I never, ever planned on living in New York. Prior to moving here, I had barely been out of California. I had been to Milwaukee once, and other than that remained solely west of the Rockies. Then, I graduated college and had no idea what to do with my life. Then, I met a Guy who was home for winter break from grad school in Connecticut. Then, we dated for the month he was in California. And then, I decided that I should move to the east coast (and the Guy would fall in love with me, naturally. Any planning beyond that seemed irrelevant). So I talked to my family, who thought it was a great idea for me to try a new city for a while. (At this point, the “plan” was to move to Boston for one year, then come back to California and get back on the grad school bandwagon.) The Guy returned to Connecticut, and thought it would be great if I moved to Boston. He said I could stay with him in New Haven while I got settled. Since I was sort-of-secretly moving to be near him anyway, I took him up on the offer. And three months later, my friend Angela and I drove cross-country in her Honda Civic. I left her in Washington D.C. where she was starting an internship, and I hopped on Amtrak, bound for New Haven. The Guy greeted me at the train station. Then took me back to his teeny, tiny studio apartment, also known as My Temporary Home. I was 21 and totally clueless about what I wanted, but I had moved east with Boston (and the Guy) on the brain, so Boston became my focus. I borrowed the Guy’s little Mustang and drove – in snow! For the first time ever! – to Boston. I parallel-parked in the snow in Boston, I looked at apartments and had a job interview and got stuck in a snow bank trying to un-parallel park in Boston. I drove on the Mass Pike and made my way back to New Haven, and I hated Boston.

But I went back to Boston, determined to make my East Coast plan work. I stayed for a weekend with a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend in Somerville. We went to bars and hung out and looked at more apartments and talked to temp agencies. I still hated Boston.

Back in New Haven, I realized that I was suddenly living with the Guy – a guy whom I had previously only casually dated. Playing house was getting old, and awkward, besides which I’m pretty sure he was dating other girls while I sat in his studio apartment, with nowhere else to go. Sat there, hating Boston.

So I revised my plan. New Haven. I would live in New Haven. I would get an apartment and find a job and take classes at the university and live in New Haven. I met with a temp agency and they were excited to send me on jobs. I met with a real estate broker and looked at an apartment and he was excited to lease it to me. I called my sorority alumni chapter and they were excited to have me. I, however, was not excited. New Haven didn’t feel right either. So I called my mom and cried. And she told me to call my cousin Heather, an actress in New York. I called Heather and cried. She said, Get on the train, you’re spending the weekend with me.

She met me at Penn Station and took me back to her apartment. Her roommates Jay and Chris were roasting a chicken and drinking martinis. They were nice to me. They fed me. We watched movies and I woke up the next day feeling good, finally. I went to Kinko’s and printed out copies of my resume. I went to the Museum on Modern Art. I got on the wrong train and got lost. Still, I made it back to their apartment, and already, I loved New York. It fit.

My cousin had been thinking about moving back to California, so when she saw how happy I was with her and her roommates, we revised my plan and came up with a new one: stay in New York, forget the Guy, forget Boston, sublet from my cousin, and live happily ever after. So I did.

I lived with Jay and Chris for a year, until they bought a house together in New Jersey. They have since broken up, but Jay is one of my dearest friends, ever. He was a groomsman at our wedding and I will be visiting him in two weeks, in Seattle. It was fate, destiny and pure dumb luck that brought us together, but it is now one of my most cherished friendships and I have no doubt it was meant to be. Unlike my relationship with the Guy, whom I haven’t spoken to in years. But he – the Guy - helped get me where I needed to be, which is right here.

That’s why I’m not worrying about Jana. I know that whether she knows it at the time or not, the right city will find her and claim her as its own. The need for change creeps up on you until it can’t be ignored. It may feel like an impulse, but the drive has been there, gathering momentum and courage inside of you. We make changes for reasons which seem silly or small or irrational at the time, but with hindsight comes clarity, and we can then see exactly how our paths were laying themselves out for us. Jana knows. She may start out for Atlanta and wind up confused in Chicago, but wherever she lands, it will be home. Fate is funny that way.