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.

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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.

Well, folks, it’s official.  At least by weather standards.  Fall is here.  And I can’t say I’m one of the people who’s totally thrilled about it.

As a self-professed naked-sympathizer, the season of fall and its subsequent winter complicates things for me.  It makes things… cold.  And while I certainly like the idea of crackling fires and mulled cider and staying warm and toasty while blistering winds blow past my house, the frightening reality is that I can’t hibernate just because it’s winter.  Cozy fireplace cuddlefests can only last so long, and then real things — annoying things — things like bills, and jobs, and people, and bills start calling and wondering why I haven’t paid them any attention for days, and I can’t hardly tell them that I’m afraid of the cold and hadn’t really planned on leaving my house until May of 2012.

People would look at me funny.

Well, funnier than they already do.

Fuzzy phone photo of said fireplace I might never want to leave, come winter.  The picture is from this post.  My, how far I’ve come since then.  I think.  I hope.  And I’m not just talking about my attitude — I’m talking about that green wall that has since turned… not green.  I still need to show you that, don’t I?

Assuming I still have this real estate assistant job throughout the winter (a job whose potential expiration date I’m forced to face on an almost-daily basis, thanks to the oh-so-kind reminders from Alpha and the Underdog), I’m going to have to face the cold more often than your average cubicle-goer.  After all, there are still photos to be taken.  Signs to be put in yards.  Lock boxes to be attached to door knobs.

Fun stuff, like that.

What?  You thought I had that awesome Green Tours job from Apartment Therapy?  Don’t worry — I still do.  But I neglected to mention that it’s just a freelance, very part-time position, meaning it’s fantastic for making connections and building a portfolio, but it won’t exactly stand on its own against all of those bills that keep calling to pull me away from the fireplace.

Not that I’m complaining!  Does it sound like I’m complaining?  Because I’m not.  I am beyond psyched.

But, wow.  This is turning into a really long and boring Facebook status update, no?  And that’s not the kind of quality content I want to bring you on this site.  I don’t want to talk about the weather — I want to bring you stuff you can actually apply to life, like explaining how you can ensure that your sh*t don’t stink and how to open a beer bottle with a paint key.

Useful stuff.

But since I have to head out into the chill to pay the bills, the quality stuff, unfortunately, will have to wait.

Thanks for all of that positive feedback on my job post!  You have no idea how much the fact that you actually take time out of your days to read my ramblings actually helps me get my act together.

And you know, it really is crazy how you can actually feel that rudder catch when your ship starts to turn.

Remember that ship?

If you feel like you’re heading for a crash and you don’t remember what I said about the ship, I think you should go back and read this post.

We all turn eventually.  We just have to give it time.

So I told myself I was going to start writing fewer, but more thought-out blog posts per week.  You know, instead of just vomiting whatever comes up with my morning coffee, I’d come up with a concise subject, write a draft, take and edit some relevant photos, edit the draft, and post a nicely polished final product.

What ended up happening is the idea of putting thought into my blog posts absolutely paralyzed me with fear and I ended up writing nothing.  Nothing at all.

What is wrong with me?

Speaking of all that is not right with my head, I realize my life is entering a fairly big transition stage.  See, it seems like a huge part of life in my 20’s has been about weddings — planning bridal showers and bachelorettes, buying dresses I’ll only wear once, clapping as Justin does the worm on the ballroom floor while all of the middle-aged women stand in line to dance with him, toasting good friends and laughing at the fact that we’ve grown up so much since college and then stopping, awestruck, when we realize that all of this is really happening.

Me in my wedding dress circa 2006.

Justin doing the worm at my best friend’s wedding.

But now?

Now the wedding invitations are slimming out and new announcements are coming.

Announcements with big, round bellies and feathery storks and registries that force me to go to uncomfortable places like Toys R Us and Gymboree instead of fun places like Target and Bed, Bath and Beyond.

Instead of conjuring thoughts of delectably intricate fondant-covered cakes and sparkling glasses of champagne, they conjure images of enduring blindfolded baby food tastings and stimulating conversations about nipple shields.  (Unless, of course, the invitation is for a baby hot tub party.  Unfortunately, this evolution might be a slow process.)

And I always thought that these things were okay, I guess, as long as they were happening to other people.

What I didn’t know is that they’d start happening to all other people.

First, my cousin brought a gorgeous little daughter Emma into the world.  Then my sister-in-law countered with my so-adorable-it-hurts-a-little pudgesicle of a nephew, Jack.  Then one of Justin’s cousins had one.  Then my friend Alaina.  And now one of Justin’s other cousins is about to pop.  And my next door neighbor is starting to show.  And other friends are getting or thinking about getting knocked up left and right.

It’s starting to seem like everywhere I turn, women are gulping down this Kool-aid like it’s their job, and it’s making the walls feel all foreboding like they’re closing in around me and there’s all this pressure of people saying, When’s it going to be your turn?  Or, Don’t worry — you’re next!

Except really, there’s not any pressure at all.

And I think there must be something wrong in my head, because at almost-29-years-old, shouldn’t I be feeling pressure?

When I look at this picture I took yesterday of my husband holding my friend’s new baby, shouldn’t my ovaries start tapping impatiently on my uterine wall, asking “knock, knock, is this apartment still vacant?”

But they don’t.

It’s like my ovaries packed up and vacated the premises years ago, thinking there’s no point in doing all this yearning work if I don’t even care.

The thing is, I like babies.

But I mostly like holding them for a bit, smelling them a little, carrying them around like overstuffed baby burritos and dressing them in silly hats, and then I like giving them back to their parents.

So I can go get a real burrito.

I like looking at them through a lens and watching them change and documenting facial expressions and using these images to find ways to make their parents happy.

To help them capture the gamut.

Peaceful baby.

Cooing baby.

Umm… NOT peaceful baby.

And it’s at about this time when I think, man it would be nice to be sipping from a glass of beer or wine while reading a book at a cafe in Malaga right now.

With olives.  Lots of olives.

Don’t judge me.  It’s how I feel.

And that, I’m pretty sure, is the surefire sign that sometime in the wee hours of a restless night, the elves (I told you about those here and here) put me together all discombobulated-like and forgot to reattach a screw that was supposed to stimulate the part of me that would take one look at those last 2 photos and choose, without a second’s doubt or hesitation, the baby over the beer.

I mean, look at her.

I know that I love that baby.  I love that she’s now a part of our group, and I can honestly say that given the choice, I wouldn’t go back to the time B.B.  Before Baby.

I love her for what she means to my friends.  I love her for the way her tiny fingers clench around my pointer when I hold her.  I love her for the things I might get to teach her and the things she’s most definitely going to teach me.  I love that I am going to get to spoil the ever-loving crap out of her.

And, I especially love that when that crap does come out of her, I’m not the one who has to clean it up.

Does that make me weird?

Probably.  Or maybe it’s just a sign that I’m not intended to procreate.  That maybe it’s a good thing there’s only one of me.  Besides, I can’t mess up what I don’t even have, right?

Right.

I can’t say I will feel like this forever.

Maybe there will be a day when I’ll be holding Myra and I won’t want to give her back.  Not ever.

If that happens, I might have to quit the blog because it would be kind of hard to keep this up while on the run for baby-napping.

But we’ll worry about that when and if the time comes, yes?

Here’s my dilemma.

Alpha and the Underdog are currently sucking the very lifeforce out of me.  At least, that’s how it seems.

Which is why I haven’t really been writing in this blog.  I feel as though I don’t have much to write about, unless it’s to bitch about work.  It’s not that I’m not doing anything else — it’s just that work, especially if it’s a poor working environment, tends to get the best of me when things aren’t running smoothly.

And things are not running smoothly.

Believe it or not, it’s the Underdog who’s been getting on my nerves lately, even more than our bipolar Alpha.  Apparently the Underdog has forgotten that she had a hand in hiring a perfectly capable, competent person to do her marketing.

Through recent collaboration with the Underdog, I’ve learned that one of the worst feelings ever is that nausea that swells up from your stomach and into your throat when a “superior” speaks to you as though you’re a 2-year-old who just attempted to eat your own toes just because you stepped in a puddle of melted chocolate, and you can’t say anything in an attempt to prove otherwise — that you’re actually very knowledgeable about these things she’s trying to show you and in fact might know more about it than she does, because then she becomes indignant that a mere hourly employee dares to think she might know more about a piece of computer software than a licensed  professional.

I mean, jeez.  It’s not like her license is in Professional Flyer Creation.  It’s Real Estate.

Give me a break.

I will feel awful if Alpha and the Underdog ever discover this blog, probably because I’d no longer have a job, but seriously.

Also, there’s this whole eviction thing.

I know that people cannot expect to live in someone else’s home for free.

I know this.

But I honestly don’t think there will ever be a part of me that finds joy in eviction.

Alpha has tried to teach it to me — this glee she experiences when she gets to kick someone out of a property — but it’s just not in me.  That is the type of mentality that fits someone who used to throw rocks at homeless people in high school.

Not me.

I’m sure there is a certain shell one would have to build in order to do property management long-term.  It’s not for the weak of heart.  And some people will say anything to live somewhere for free.  So, for the sake of a homeowner who needs rent to pay his or her mortgage, I can stay tough.  I can evict.

But I’m never — ever — going to like it.

The thing is, there are aspects about this job I could really learn to love.  But, I need a role model I can respect and who respects me in return.

Is that too much to ask?

Apparently.

Fortunately, the real boss should be back soon, and I’m thinking things will be more pleasant after that.

Aside from all of that, the news is good.  The office is progressing, albeit slowly.  Also, I’m an aunt.

Well, not a real aunt, but a kind-of-sort-of pseudo aunt because my best friend in the world, the one who let her friends throw her a baby hot tub party, finally had her baby.

In a bed, not a hot tub.

Sorry for the blurry face — I was excited and apparently unable to operate my camera.

And, her husband already knows how to swaddle her because of the relay race, I’m pretty sure.

How to swaddle a fake baby.

How to swaddle a real baby.  Like a baby burrito.

Except you should never eat a real baby.

No matter how much you might want to.

So, how are all of you?  I’ll admit I felt a little rejected when almost no one responded to my chick flick post from the weekend.  But then I realized with all the chick flick talk and the baby talk, you might feel like I’m going all soft on you and am going to start giving tutorials on how to hug babies and why it’s okay to wear footsie PJ’s while watching reruns of Dawson’s Creek, and I just want to assure you that’s not the case.

And if it is, you have my permission to feel very, very sorry for me.