Stimpy

I've not yet recovered from this feeling of longing. Though recounting my blessings lately has brought about a sense of satisfaction in my life. Yes, I failed a class this term (a feat which has weighed heavily on my mind while I was failing it all semester long), but my "What to Say When Folks Ask What's Going On In My Life" list is chock-full of positivity. Ironically, it isn't until I reveiw this list I realise I have little cause for depression.

Okay, I failed a class and, alright, I didn't get the internship for which I moved to NYC, but I am retaking the class and fulfilling my reasoning for moving to this blessed city this Spring. As my dad said during my choke-and-sob confession to him upon asking for rent money back in October, you've got to have movement to get the ball rolling. Stagnation does nothing to promote growth of anything other than pond scum.

And he's right- I knew in that moment; hell, I knew (albeit deep down) before then. From the moment I put forth effort in this City, everything I've attempted I've achieved.

One week before rent due and the morning I was planning on telling my folks I needed rent money, I called a temp agency I'd been recommended to and for weeks prior and requested an interview. Two hours later I was seated before my new employer. The next morning, I had a job starting the following Monday with a non-profit organisation. Enter The Partnership for the Homeless, an agency which aids the homeless and, kismetically enough, keeps me off the streets as well. Thus began a week-by-week "temporary" job, a pursuit for a permanent position and a validation of self. How great it felt to be employed again.

While the pursuit did not culminate in the permanent position (for which I was HIGHLY overqualified), it has resulted in the reason for my being here: an internship (to begin in January). Yes, it's official: everything's coming up roses.

While cultivating my professional garden, my relationship arborium, surprisingly, earned a positive gross income. Tang came and went from my life, destroying weeds and harvesting growth, arriving at a time of famine and drought to refresh my intellectual soil, just long enough to remind me that it is still there and in need of tending. A good friend and mentor of mine once told me that the mark of a good friendship was lack of need; you don't need your friends, she told me, and I've tried very hard to relate according to that. The vaccuum of Tang still lingers, but not in the desperate sense I predicted. My friendship with her is the healthiest of all to develop this year.

Another interesting frienship to develop has been the one with Fizz, with whom I share my living space and everyday joy. Ours is the second relationship this year to move from long distance to close proximity, a trick only successful if both sides are ready to shift positions (not just locations) at a moment's notice. This kind of change requires the sort of flexibility rarely seen outside of long distance-to-everyday friendships. It's much easier to move from everyday-to-long distance than the other way around. Add to that the extension of not just everyday frienship muscles, but flatmate presense, too. Consider, also, that the relationship has had to adjust for the honeymoon stage of a significant other, present since just before we moved in together.

It's for these reasons that this relationship change requires much more patience than usual. There is, of course, no fault to be found with either party (and, if so, moreso with me than her); I look at it as a challenge to (what I think has been) my growth in the last two years. A test, if you will, to see how far I've come. And while this little "review" of our relationship has (it may appear) done little to promote the goodness that is Fizz, that means precisely dick about how much I adore this woman, whose catalysing nature rakes (and sows) my conscience daily, leaving in her furrow a row sure to yield growth.

The "What to Say When Folks Ask What's Going On In My Life" list, lately, hasn't included the primary source of my gratification: the Boy, without whose support none of this would have been possible. He's the first of my long distance-turned-everyday frienships to emerge this year, providing me with a home from mid-July to mid-September (a whopping and depression-inducing unproductive three months). Ours has been the easiest relationship to develop this year, primarily because he's so-damn-comfortable. And giving. And caring. And loving. And interesting. And... And... And... ad infinitum. But most of all, he's always there, a gift in and of itself.

And in the love department.

My relationship with Her has gone to extremes since I moved up here. Early on, I employed a slash-and-burn technique in our relationship, severing our offical ties while continuing to love her in all the same ways. In less than a score of days from now, She will be moving in with me, a technique I've NEVER engaged in any of my relationship-relationships. For me, there is far more excitement than trepidation than for Her, for whom the opposite is true, but my firm plant on (mostly) solid ground helps us keep the faith.

So, what you're basically saying is: you've nothing to complain of.

Recently, I was lucky enough to have multiple lines (which have split-off and been running parallel since I moved from home in 2002) converge at a joyous point. My folks met my Adult Self in the place of my Adult Life in the context of my Adult Friends. They even all adored each other. Hee hee. How cool is that? How feckin' lucky am I? From this meeting sprung a joy unmatched by recent standards, a reason to say, "I'm happy" for the first time in MONTHS and actually believe it.

And still other relationships have evolved, most notably the "on-line" sort. Ex's have moved further away, while Exships-turned-friendships and friendships have ebbed and flowed with the moon's phases. Whatever has come of each of them I have been grateful for, even the ones that have become distant.

Oh, yeah: and it snowed last night. I randomly woke up this morning at 430 and stayed awake long enough to stare out the window and smile, consider running out to my backyard to make a nude snow angel, and crack my window to let in some of the moisture before falling back asleep.

Nature does an awesome job of reminding us of our childhood.