Top Surgery Tomorrow

Last Day Before Surgery

If you’ve been reading my blog, you’re probably aware that I’m having top surgery tomorrow . . . and if you haven’t been, well, now you know. I am so excited for it to finally be happening. I am rather less excited about the whole hospital/surgery thing. I don’t have much experience with either of those. Still, it’ll be what it’ll be, and my family and friends have been fantastic.

Weekend In My Favorite City

This weekend was my second trip back to Chicago since I moved away in April, and it’s been fantastic. I am exhausted; I needed to cancel my credit card this morning because a stranger has it; and I have to wake up at 4 AM tomorrow morning (and later work until at least 10 PM) — but it has been a phenomenal weekend. 

Meeting Dar Williams (Live at the Ark)

Dar and me

Dar’s performance at The Ark in Ann Arbor, Michigan was fantastic. Technically, it was billed as “An Evening with Dar Williams,” which meant that there wasn’t an opening act: it was all Dar. Wonderful. I went with two friends from Bryn Mawr. We stuck around afterwards to meet Dar, and it was super exciting. She was really sweet — she signed our CDs and tickets, took a photo with us, and chatted for a minute about Bryn Mawr. 

Dar Williams: “You Are Everyone”

Dar Williams performed at Bryn Mawr my senior year. It was a wonderful concert; there’s always a special energy about Dar at Bryn Mawr. This is a video of her song “You Are Everything”:

I first heard “You Are Everyone,” from Dar’s album Promised Land, when she performed at the Minnesota Zoo in the summer of 2009. I love it. The line “You are everyone / I ever trusted, that never made a fool out of me” especially speaks to me.

Reasons I’m Glad I’m Short

As far back as I can remember, I’ve wanted to be taller. When we lined up from tallest to shortest for picture day in lower school, I would always be at or near the end of the line. And as I grew older, it became frustrating that people would think me so young — possibly because I simply look young but also definitely because I’m short. On a flight back to college one winter, the airline people even wanted to make me aware that I need to be fifteen in order sit in the exit row. I still often wish that I were taller, especially because there are so few people my height who are read as male (I’m just over five feet tall, if you didn’t know).

People Make Me Feel Safe

I was at a self-defense training tonight, and one of the things the instructor focused on was managing our flight-or-fight responses. I realized that one of the things that I do — that I’ve always done — to center myself, to calm my nerves, to make myself less tense is to think about particular people. There have always been certain friends that have made me feel safe and happy, and for well over a decade, I’ve used the thought of them to cheer myself up or make myself less scared. Beyond that, if I’m with a group of people (family, friends, camp, organizations), I will often subconsciously choose someone to represent safety to me — as long as I know where that person is, I feel that things will all be okay. It’s mostly irrational, but it’s something I just realized that I do.

My Best Friend’s Wedding

At the wedding

My best friend got married today! I am so thrilled for her and her new husband. It was a beautiful ceremony, and I’m glad that I’m on T because otherwise there’s a decent chance that I would have bawled through the whole thing. I had the whole wobbly-lipped, about-to-sob thing going on as it was, but there were no actual tears (which are a lot harder to hide). It was wonderful; the reception was fantastic; and the couple was clearly very much in love. Most definitely a day to remember. 

Wedding Weekend

My best friend and her fiance are getting married tomorrow! The wedding weekend is finally here, and I couldn’t be happier for them. Between work and the wedding festivities (bachelorette party last night, wedding rehearsal and rehearsal dinner tonight), however, I have barely been home (literally — I left for work yesterday morning and didn’t get back until about half an hour ago) and thus have had no chance to write blog posts. 

Feeling Better About Minnesota

Despite my apprehension about my new job, I have begun to feel progressively better about being in Minnesota. Or rather, as I began and ended this week (Monday and now today), I was — and currently am — feeling positive.

Monday:

For all that visiting Chicago has made me desperately miss it and wish I were still/already living there, my brief time back has also, perhaps counterintuitively, made me feel better about spending the next year in Minnesota. Let me be clear: I miss Chicago; I miss my friends; I wish more than I can articulate that I were living there now. And yet, the fear that I’m going to be forgotten if I stay away is slowly ebbing. That fear was really fueling the need to get back now — the feeling that not only do I not want to wait, I can’t wait, or else I’ll lose everything and everyone I miss so much. It’s a stupid, irrational fear, but it was strong.

Anticipating My Five Year High School Reunion

I graduated from high school five years ago, and since I currently live in the Twin Cities, I’m going to the five-year reunion, which is in less than a month. To be honest, I’m not quite sure how I feel about this reunion — I’m really not who I was five years ago, even though I sometimes revert back to that when I’m around high school people. The reunion will certainly be interesting. At least parts of it will undoubtedly be awkward. But I don’t think it will be bad: the people with whom I graduated were nice people. I may not have much in common with many of them now, but they’re good people, and the reunion might be fun.