write me well

  • Where It Happens

    The sun has been out for three days straight now, and the result is nothing short of spectacular. I’ve been told by many that nothing beats London in the summer (the English love talking about the weather – a unifying subject that allows for polite, agreeable conversation to fill any awkward void, it comes up often), and 72 hours in, I’m inclined to agree. This city is a stunner in the glaze of blue skies and a cool breeze.

    Half of it is the architecture, the plotted parks of greenery in between rows of stunning period terraced houses, the bright green awning of a tiny corner café that’s empty inside but brimming on the patio. But the other half, just as assuredly, is the people, and the contagious hum of thrilled energy that is a city populous that’s been absolutely sun-starved since September. Everything is better when the sun is shining, and while I have a deep appreciation for blanket-burrowing-cup-of-tea winter weather, I am in love with this energy. It’s not quite May yet but I can already feel the swell of optimism and magic that stirs without fail this time of year.

    (This year the feeling is all the more potent because I am experiencing a bone-deep level of self-satisfaction that I should probably be a little sorry for, but can’t even manage that much. I’m in awe of the reality of getting to exactly where I am. I’m a happy person – I’m probably as genetically predisposed for positivity as it gets – but the level of baseline contentment I’ve had for the past few weeks is unreal, even for me.)

    In all my return-to-England daydreams I never really imagined myself landing in London, but now that I’m here, I can’t get enough of it. I ended up in an apartment on the edge of Notting Hill, about a twenty-minute bus/tube ride from work on Regent Street, with every amenity imaginable (including a gym that I’m sure I will perpetually aspire to use, but likely will never enter) less than a ten-minute walk away. Roughly zero percent of me misses having a car. I do tell myself that statistically speaking, eventually I will become disillusioned with public transportation, but right now that’s a distant thing, because the public transportation in this city is phenomenal. It genuinely stresses me out thinking of how many things have to go right every minute of every day for it all to function as seamlessly as it does. I actively have to not think about it whenever I’m on the tube.

    Last weekend the sun showed its face on Saturday and I was off for the day, so I wandered out into my new neighborhood bent on guessing my way to Kensington Palace. Hyde Park is a straight shot down the street from my building, so I could have done it the easy way, but I was determined to weave a bit through the stunning streets of Notting Hill on my way there to make the most of the weather.

    Again, with the sun out and proud, I’d guess that every Londoner that wasn’t at work had the same idea as me. Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens, and Kensington Palace were filled with families, dog walkers, runners, and tourists. I ended up making a giant circle around the palace and walked up the street just outside of it, gaping at several embassies, mansions, and gated driveways in the process. At this point, the day was still young, so with Kensington Palace checked off, I jumped on the tube and knocked out the Tower of London.

    The Tower of London is about a thousand times more my speed. Never in my entire life have I felt the way I did when I was inside, standing in a place that was so deeply entrenched in the overlapping lives of countless historical figures. Sure, post War of the Roses the place has a well-earned bloody rap, but I was in complete awe of this structure that has stood for so long and seen so much. That this same building, the same rooms I walked through, hosted Norman lords and existed when the conquest was still a very fresh and controversial part of local memory. I called my mom while I was standing on one of the inner walls to tell her about it because the list of people that would understand just how inexplicably emotional the experience was is rather short.

    Since then, I’ve had an almost normal-person schedule at work (bring on that Mon-Fri life – JK it feels weird and my retail4life body doesn’t know how to handle it) so further exploring has been minimal.

    But every bus ride and every lunch break still feels like an adventure of sorts because I’m reminded that somehow I’ve managed to pick up my life and plant it here with a level of success that I did not imagine possible.

    So, I mean, I guess there’s that too.

     

  • And She’s Back.

    I’m going to open with: it’s been a while.

    Not since I’ve written, not since I’ve blogged, and certainly not since I’ve engaged with social media or the rest of the internet. But it’s been a while since I’ve done any of the above with the intent of staying in touch with a big ole giant pile o’ people that I don’t get to see very often.

    It’s been seven years, to be exact.

    But we’re going to blaze right on past that fact (BLAZE, I tell you, as time is so fond of doing) and focus instead on the subject of dreaming. And planning. And what it’s like when those two concepts partner up in a whiz of conceptual bliss and a girl finds herself in a sixth story flat in Notting Hill, staring at a laptop screen, about to start a new job tomorrow.

    I have always been and likely always will be a feels person. When it came to moving back, the feels were there. That was the dreaming part, and boy was it easy. But a planner I am not, so it is a true testament to just how much I wanted to make this happen that I did it and that I’m here.

    While I was in San Jose I would spend most days off with a notebook and my laptop (this one’s named Herbie) at Peet’s Coffee, alternating between planning and daydreaming around how I was going to make all of this happen. The process involved a lot of introspection. A lot of, “How did I arrive at this point? I mean, after all, I attempted to move back every six months between 2011 and 2013. What makes this time any different? Am I actually going to do it?”

    And there are a lot of different answers to those questions. Boiled down, though, to their barest, you get one thing: timing. So much in this world comes down to timing, and my life was just the same. This time, I had a company that could support my transfer. This time, I was able to buckle down and pay off a ton of debt. This time, I had a jumping off point and an invaluable support system on both sides of the Atlantic. And this time, it was my last chance. Because, well, Brexit.

    I can trace this entire process back to the end of the summer of 2012. My dual citizenship process had stagnated but I was reveling in reconnecting with one of my oldest friends while I was still living at home. And then two things happened: my grandmother fell and broke her hip, so my parents had to move to San Diego to help her, and that old friend suddenly passed away in an accident, so I just as suddenly needed some distance.

    So I moved to San Diego and upon arriving found out my citizenship application was ready to be turned in. I made an appointment at the consulate for the following spring, two weeks after which I met and started dating my last boyfriend. When I got the call a year after my appointment that I was officially a dual citizen, we were living together and I was about to buy a car. Moving to England was, to say the least, on hold.

    Six months later we’d broken up and I’d decided to focus on my career. I’d gotten my own store with World Market and I’d moved to Orange County.

    And roughly six months after that, I wore a pair of pants from Anthropologie to work, and a customer that worked for Anthropologie casually tried to recruit me out of my store. That was May of 2015. I moved to San Jose to start working for them in April the following year.

    Two years later, it’s April 3rd, 2018, and I start my job with Anthro EU tomorrow at 8am.

    It’s hardly a direct path, I know. It certainly felt indirect while I was living it. But knowing where I landed and what I went through, it is so easy to see how many seemingly innocuous little moments completely changed my plans. And that makes me so much more confident, and happy, and relaxed about what the future holds. Keep on keeping on – with your eyes wide open – kick some ass, and have the patience to wait out that timing, and nothing can stand in the way of what you want to get done.

    All you need is a little daydreaming. (And planning.)

    Now, that being said:

    This blog is going to be almost 100% what I’ve come to mentally tag as pers/misc: personal miscellaneous. For the first time in my internet presence I’ve linked all of my social media accounts to it as well (#omnichannel), and not for the last time most of what I write will seek to alternately amuse, enlighten, entertain, and keep me in touch with the lot of you.

    I hope you all enjoy!