Well, it’s weird.

The earth has circled the sun exactly 29 times since the day I decided to grace all of you with my presence — not in the blog world, obviously, since I was old enough to remember my dad bringing home our very first Apple computer, complete with green screen and a joystick, of all the coolest things to get invented.

Next to jelly shoes and slap bracelets, of course.

It’s weird, because I don’t feel a day over 34.

Kidding.

I think it’s safe to say that I’m in a very different place from the one I was in at this same time last year.  Not just physically, since back then I was, as my dear friend Erin reminded me this morning, “sipping Imperials in grubby, worn-out flip-flops while sitting in an open-air restaurant that we had to walk 2 miles down a dirt road (and then scramble to somehow put together the 3 colones for the cab ride) to get to,” and tonight I’ll likely be sipping much-more-expensive mojitos with some fantastic girlfriends at a restaurant I drive to myself.

Morning view last year:

Morning view this year:

Sure, they both involve fog, but my, how times change.

Also, I’m different.

The quarter-life crisis (or maybe now it’s more accurately a third-life crisis) is still lurking, like a funky aftertaste or sticky morning mouth, but it’s less… potent.

And I think it’s because I’m finally starting to find my way.

Do you know that feeling, when you dive deep down into a murky lake, and somehow you become all discombobulated from turning and spinning and having a grand ol’ time, and then, out of nowhere, it gets scary because you realize you’re no longer sure which way is up?

Suddenly you’re terrified because there is a very real possibility that you’re swimming in the wrong direction, further away from the breathable clarity of the surface, until you find yourself face-planting into the sandy bottom.

Yep, I actually did that once.

But figuratively speaking, that’s me as well.  I’ve been face-planting for a while now, and it feels like maybe I’ve finally been able to gain some precarious footing and push off of the pliable sand.

I’m not sure where I’m going, but at least it’s somewhere.

And anywhere is better than hitting bottom.

I can already tell it’s going to be a good day, because I emerged from my steamy shower and padded into the kitchen to discover that Justin had left me this:

Coffee ready-to-go and a piece of bread in the toaster, just waiting to get crunchified and spread with peanut butter and jelly.

The perfect work morning breakfast.

And already I can see that the fog is starting to clear.

I was about to tell you about hot dogs.

I’ve told you about my love of hot dogs before, and my fondness hasn’t weakened since then.

In fact, my hot-dog tastin’ palette has probably become more refined.  More in touch with the beyond-ketchup-and-mustard possibilities that a hot dog can be.

This is why I was going to tell you about the hot dog Mecca my brother took us to on our visit to Cleveland.  I was going to tell you about it before Justin came back in the house after he’d supposedly left for work, sheepishly poking his head through the garage door to make sure I’d at least had a few sips of my coffee before sharing his news.

“Remember that trellis that used to surround the propane tank?” he asked.

“Yes…” I said.

“Remember how it fell off so I built a real gate with new trellis?” he asked.

“Yes…” I said.

“Remember how you made me put the old trellis away in the garage? he asked.

“Yes,” I said, “after you’d let it sit in the yard for a month?  That trellis?”

“Maybe.”  He said.  “Well.  It might have fallen over last night and it might have still had nails in it and I might have backed over it with the car on my way out this morning and I might now have 2 flat tires.”

“…”

“OkayILoveYouBye!”

Sigh.

I know there’s a bigger lesson here.  Some metaphor for life about rolling with the punches because that’s just the way it is or any number of country or pop song lyrics that fit the situation.

But most of the time, it’s true.  Shit just happens.

And I could be a Sad Dog.

I could get upset about it — overreact about something over which I have no earthly control — lose my temper and curse the trellis Gods and bitch about how we now have to fork over money to fix the tires or get whole new ones and why now, because it’s so not a good time, but of course it’s never a good time.

And I could cry.  I could cry because pretty much all of the money I made last week, which admittedly isn’t very much, could very likely go to fixing the trellis situation, and why does it seem like we can never get ahead and why even bother going to work if it’s just going to go to stupid shit like tires and it figures this would happen right after I ruined a perfectly good brisket because these things always happen in threes and wait that’s just two things so what’s next?

But really, I just breathe.

Because, while I try not to live life like one of those scared, timid people always waiting for the next iceberg, I expect them.  And it doesn’t make them so bad when they clear the horizon.  They’re not so daunting.  They just are.

I could be a Sad Dog and cry about scraped knees, or I could stand up, dust off, and move on with the good stuff.  The bad stuff — the little bad stuff — doesn’t deserve that kind of attention.

But the good stuff?

The good stuff deserves all kinds of attention.

So stay tuned.

I have a problem.

A very serious problem.

Just WHAT, pray tell, am I supposed to do with these?

Nowhere on the bag does it say coffee BEANS.

It should say, “These are NOT grounds.  They are BEANS.  So, if you do not have a coffee grinder, do NOT buy this bag.”

Amiright?

Now I somehow have to finish this post, get dressed, and drive my car before I can get a fix and actually wake up.

Which means that if you’re smart and live in the Fort Bragg, NC area, you should probably stay off of the roads until then.

Also, after I wrote that last sentence, I had to run down the street in my socks after the recycling truck because I forgot to put out the bin.  Because I have no coffee.  And even brisk morning sock running did not do coffee’s job for me.

So I’m sorry, dear readers, that the rest of the Cleveland chronicles will have to wait.  If you have a problem with that, you can thank our friends at Archer Farms for not presenting with clear packaging.  Because the truth is, I can barely write a coherent sentence, let alone an entire blog post.  Coffee and I have a problem with co-dependency, you see.  Or maybe it’s just my problem with dependency.  But I’d like to think that the coffee needs me as much as I need it.

It helps with my self-esteem.

Any other habits out there that you almost NEED to start your day or get to sleep?  Tell me I’m not the only one.

***UPDATE*** It has been pointed out to me by my friend Lacey that I am a colossal, blind idiot because the “Whole Bean” label is right there.  In the photo.  The photo I took and stared at, along with the bag itself, for a good 5 minutes making sure it did not say “Whole Bean”.  It must have been my coffee-deprived state of mind that blinded me to this label.  My apologies to the fine folks at Archer Farms.  Though.  I’m thinking maybe some people have a hard time seeing writing inside of circles.  It could be a serious disorder, the likes of which I’ve only begun to uncover.  Did the Archer Farms marketing people ever think of that?  I didn’t think so.

Throughout my life, I’ve always felt… a little out-of-place.

A lot out-of-place.

From the time a boy named Jason puked on me after the mile run in 6th grade (I still don’t feel clean), to my bespectacled, brace-faced, promless high school career, to my time spent trying to understand and accept life as a Yankee living in various parts of the South (um, boiled peanuts? really?), feeling out-of-place has actually become my way in the world.  The only way I feel in place.

Make sense?

In fact, I’m not really sure what would happen if one day I woke up and found myself where I’m supposed to be.  Where I feel comfortable.

Probably the last of the loose screws would detach itself from my mind and fall out of my ear and, as I watch it roll-bounce down the pavement toward the vanishing point of existence, the nice young men in their clean white coats would come and take me away to a place where I would never feel comfortable again.

Probably.

But that’s just speculation.

This whole out-of-placeness was only further confirmed in a recent memo from my editor at Re-Nest.  It read (and I paraphrase):

I’m so pleased to welcome five new members [to the team]: Laurie (New York), Alexa (San Francisco), Liana (New York), Julia (Chicago), and Katie (Sanford, North Carolina).

Okay.  Aside from the fact that they all have movie star names while mine is so girl-next-door, notice anything… odd?  I don’t know… something that makes it all too painfully clear that I’m ridiculously out of my element?

I’ll give you a hint.

Maybe — maybe — it’s the fact that I’m the only person whose city needed to be followed by the state name for clarification.

Maybe.

Maybe because Sanford is not really a city, but more like a town with a Waffle House and a Cracker Barrel.

Maybe.

But you know what?

Since feeling out of place makes me feel in place, I’m going to take this as a positive sign.  If I can’t go to the Big City to get a job, I’ll make the Big City job come to me.

I think this could work.

I think I’ve figured out what my problem is.

At least part of it.

And it’s so painfully obvious, I can’t believe I’m only just now coming to this realization over my morning coffee as the pups gnaw away on their bones.

Because this is something that’s been gnawing on my bones for over a year.  Probably longer.  And it’s really not until we get down to the marrow of things that my issues become clear.

My epiphany?

It’s not this place I have a problem with.

Well I do, but that’s not the issue.  The issue is that I’ve been in this place too long.  See, until this place, I hadn’t lived in any one place for more than 2 years for the past 10 years.  Even if I stayed in the same town, I at least changed residences.  Sometimes the moves have been circumstantial.  Sometimes just because I wanted change.  Sometimes because the military made me, once I got married.  Sometimes because adventure awaited.

Then, when we moved to North Carolina, we knew we were going to be here for at least 4 years — a certainty that’s rare in military life.  So we thought we’d take advantage by buying a small home.  A chance to feel a sense of permanence.  Of belonging to a community and calling it “home,” rather than simply a place to rest.

It never occurred to me that I might be bad at it —

That 4 years could pass, I’d open my eyes and realize I’d never even tried.  That I don’t know this place like I should.  I don’t know the people.

Instead, I was counting down.  Wasting 4 years because I wanted to be somewhere else.

Anywhere else.

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I wanted to move, people!  To me, the world becomes alive when we’re forced to change scenes and meet new characters.  Explore different radio stations.  Get lost on unknown streets.  Discover hidden coffee houses and cafes and consignment shops.  Become a stranger in a bar.

Source

It’s no secret that I love to travel.  And moving is just travel with everything you own.  Which isn’t much, when you move frequently.

But now I have all this stuff.  This stuff I’ve been accumulating for 4 years and I think that every thing that we buy also takes up residence inside my head — a bit of retail space otherwise reserved for calmness and peace gets replaced with “There’s a sale at Bath and Bodyworks?” and “Will I ever be able to find a window treatment to fully cover that bedroom window?”

And now, I’m told, we will be here a while longer.  Two years, maybe a lifetime.

And I know now that I can’t do what I did before.  Before I was just telling myself — consoling myself — saying, Don’t worry.  You’re still young.  You still have plenty of time to figure things out.

And then I blinked.

And I realized…

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And now I really don’t have plenty of time.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you should probably try blinking.

Or not, because then you might realize how much time has passed.  How many birthdays you’ve experienced here with really no one to celebrate.  How many people you spent time not getting to know.  How many southern vinegar barbecue places you haven’t discovered and how many times you haven’t experienced the foreign taste of the word y’all on your tongue.

There were things to do and see, but in your head, you had already moved on.  To someplace better, you thought.  A quaint seaside village in California.  A Mountain town in Colorado.  A northeastern city with ethnic restaurants and fall leaves and lobster rolls.

But that’s no guarantee.

And it hits you, all backhanded and rough, maybe with rings on the knuckles with pointy prongs and solid gemstones, that it’s no guarantee.  That the next place might not be “home,” either.

And then what?

You’ll let another 2 years pass unnoticed?

Unexperienced?

Unloved?

Enough.  I’ve finally figured out that if home is only where the heart is, we might not ever get there.  And that, to me, is unacceptable.

Home is where I make it.

This place has things to offer.  I just need to find them.

How about you?  Whether you’ve lived somewhere 10 months or 10 years, how do you go about keeping the place interesting?

I’m not going to sugar coat it —

Justin and I have had more than our fair share of you got some ‘splainin’ to do moments.

On Justin’s part, they usually involve my discovery of some new piece of schmancy electronic equipment residing in our living room or the amount of money he spent on movie rentals for the month.

On my part, however, the ‘splainin’ has to happen whenever Justin discovers a new disaster area denoting the latest project I started in a frenzy and then gave up on a tenth of the way through.

And I think it’s safe to say that through the course of our marriage…

I’ve had to do way more ‘splainin’ than Justin.

The French have an expression, mal dans sa peau.

To feel bad in one’s skin.

It happens when something — whether it be your career, your home life, or even your behavior, doesn’t seem to reflect the person you want to be.  Or worse, the person you know you really are.

Like someone who never ends sentences with prepositions.  Or overuses fragments.

Just for example.

Remember my letter to myself?  Oh, yes.  I have skeletons in my underwear drawer.

And I would venture to guess that *94% of people who feel this way just learn to live with it.

Discontent and disappointment is a part of life, they say.  Get over it.

Pessimism:

Then there’s about 5%, poor souls, who haphazardly try to make changes here and there, or who wait for signs or divine inspiration to point them in the right direction.

They think a dream is going to wake them in the middle an epiphanal moment and suddenly, out of nowhere, their skin just fits.  Like Jame Gumb sewed a new one just for them.

Custom tailored.

Except not as gross.

The problem here is that we’re people — not snakes.  We can’t just shed our skin when it gets a little itchy or starts to feel confining.  (And those of you yelling, What about microderm abrasion or skin peels, huh?! can just be quiet because you know I’m talking about figurative skin.  Smartasses.)

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So in most cases, waiting for Santa to bring us a new skin suit is futile.  It ain’t gonna happen.  Even if we unzip the one we have, drop it on the beach, and run clear across state — or country — lines, our own skin has a creepy way of stalking us.

And I think this is what that last 1% of people — those mal dans sa peau people — figure out.  The only way skin can be changed, really changed, is slowly and deliberately over time.

Think about it.

I wanted a new career, and it took me over a year to figure out that no one is going to walk up and hand it to me all wrapped up in a pretty blue box with a white ribbon.  And if something like that were to happen, it would most likely be wrapped in a brown paper bag covered in grease stains and secured with duct tape and should, as indicated by the chickenscratched and misspelled address, be approached with extreme caution.

I think I’ll pass.

Which unfortunately means I have to work for it.

Damn.

And if I don’t like the fact that I’ve somehow managed to turn into a tightly-wound stressball at home who can’t stop thinking about how much money I used to make, I can change that, too.

It took me time to get here, but I used to be someone I liked.

I can be her again.  It just takes more time.

So.  The good news is we’re not stuck with the people we’ve become.  If you’re bad in your skin, maybe it is time for a spa treatment.  Sandpaper that shizzle right off and start fresh.  The healing process might be painful.  And it might make you look ugly sometimes.  But if you keep in mind that person you want to be, it’s worth the funny looks you get in the meantime.

“I got a chemical peel.  Is it bad?”

My name is Katie, and, in a nutshell, I’ve gone from waitress, to Geographic Information Specialist and Sustainability Coordinator, to unemployed, back to waitress, and now an underpaid Real Estate and property management assistant who kicks people out of their homes for a living.

I know, right?

W.T.F.

But don’t worry.  It’s all part of the process.

I think.

*All percentages referenced above are 100% concocted from my own imagination.  Do not use them for reports, statistical analyses, or a master’s thesis on anything other than a psychological analysis of people who pull random statistics out of their asses.  In which case I want to be cited.  And let in on the results.