Dispatches From Inside the Whale

I'm not dead, I promise, I've just let New York swallow me up.  And I've got to tell you, it has been pretty great.  I'm finally beginning to feel like a grown up, like everything is finally sinking in.  I'm moving into a grown up apartment at the end of the month, and I'm working and paying bills like a grown up, and I'm finding new ways to enjoy my life, and I'm working to cherish my friends and the opportunities that come along.  I can't believe it is March already, I feel like I've been here forever, not just 6 months.  SIX months (six on Sunday, in fact).  I am happy and I have no idea what's going to come next.  And that is just about the most exciting thing I could think of.

The 1st (well, 2nd) Day of the Rest of My Life

I had this moment walking home yesterday from my first day at my new job, this moment where I actually stepped away from my physical body and hovered over myself, taking the entire scene in and feeling completely astonished.  Because at 24 (and a half, but who's counting), yesterday was the first day of my adult life or, to be more specific, my life as an adult on my own.  I am 3000 miles away from my dear parents and beginning to do things totally (mostly) on my own for the first time.  Yesterday was literally the first day of the rest of my life.

I can't say that I've dreamt of this moment my whole life because really, I didn't ever think of this moment specifically before last night, but it seems like something one should dream about--the day when you are on your own for reals, the day when you become responsible for you entirely.  Don't misunderstand me, my parents haven't tossed me off completely, they are still helping me until my first paycheck comes in (ok, maybe until the 2nd comes in.  They are the best).  But once that happens, it is Ashleigh responsibility time.  And you know what? Even though that is completely terrifying, it is also super exciting.  I've sort of been waiting for this time in my life for a while, ever since graduating from college in fact.  And even though right now it feels a little bit like I'm just visiting New York for funsies, I know that feeling is going to go away soon (or at least diminish).  Things are finally starting to take shape for me in this city that I love and I sort of can't believe it.  I get to do so many lovely and fun things here in New York, which include but aren't limited to-: 1) live in my favorite city, 2) work in my field doing something I actually believe in and enjoy, 3) play guitar for tiny people on a regular basis (starting next week!), 4) see my beautiful college friends whenever I can/want, 5) eat all the yummy food New York City has to offer.  My dear friend Kyle said it best: what an amazing time to be alive and living in New York City.

I've mentioned it before (at least twice), but during college I would walk around the city and be stopped dead in my tracks because I realized, "I live here.  I can't believe it."  It still happens and every time I get the same tingle down my spine and smile across my face.  I feel constantly elated that I get to live my life in the place of my dreams every single day.  How many people get to say that?  And sometimes when I feel that familiar smile start to cross my face I fast forward 20 or 30 years into the future and I look back at this time on my life and I feel incredibly blessed and grateful, saying to myself (and my future family), "How lucky was I that I got to be young and alive in New York City at such a time? Isn't that amazing?!  Let me tell you, future as-yet-unnamed-child-of-mine, it was amazing to me even then." (this is totally true and a totally unweird conversation to imagine, by the way).

Being able to consult with my future self is sort of a new thing and I assume comes from getting older.  I swear, I just had this moment about a year ago while, I believe, I was watching an episode Bones that I suddenly became aware of how fragile and imminent the end is.  Now, I know that this sounds a) like something some sort of paranoid hypochondriac would say and b) a little overly dramatic, but it is true.  For some reason, on this day, sitting on the couch alone in my parents living room, I realized that, at some point, I will no longer exist.  And while the crushing weight of this terrifying realization washed over me, I was met with what is probably the most comforting image that has ever come to my mind.  It was of me, a very old and crimpy and completely content grey-haired lady, laying in a bed at the end, surrounded by my family.  And I concede that this image is likely something I've constructed out of scenes from movies and television shows, but I none the less was calmed by it.  Because it seemed to mean that there was something out there for me, something I was and have always been driving towards--a life. A full, beautiful, exciting life.  And every choice that I make is leading me towards that moment and all the moments before it.  What a fantastic and transcendent thought, ay?  I am learning to accepted that every step of my journey to that image is taking me exactly where I need to go and teaching me what I need to learn, even if I often have no idea what I'm going or where I am going.  The not knowing is half the fun, right?  Truthfully, I don't know if I completely agree with that statement but I am learning to be ok with it and allow for the possibility that it might be true.

So here I am, on the 2nd day of the rest of my life, journey yet to be written, but knowing a beautiful and satisfying destination lies just beyond it.  Not too shabby for a Wednesday, I'd say. Not too shabby at all.

Back in New York

a picture from my cab ride home early this morning.

I'm back home in NYC after a quick trip to my homeland of California.  I love the holidays and being able to go home to beautiful California "winter" (it was like 60 degrees the entire time) was lovely.  I had WAAAAAAAY to much fun and have returned to New York a content lady who is ready to start the new chapter in her life.  That new chapter starts tomorrow, when I start my new job.  WAHOOO!  I'm super excited.  I've got more posts brewing so keep an eye out.  If the past two days are any indication, 2012 is going to be a great year, full of happiness, laughter, friends, and family.  And I can't wait.

New York City is a Beautiful Place

View from Central Park

Sometimes I am just floored by how absolutely beautiful New York City is. There were lots of times during college (ok, let's not lie to ourselves, it still happens) that I would be walking around and I would be completely overwhelmed by the things I was seeing.  I think that I've dreamt about New York for so long and so often that at some point between me knowing that it was a place (we're talking 2nd or 3rd grade) and living here (and now moving here!) it became this mythical place in my mind.  Like you'd have to cross a rainbow bridge or battle a troll to get to it.  And yet somewhere in my dreaming I ended up here.  And that is something I am grateful for every day.

An Ashleigh Grows in Brooklyn

view of the sunset from Ikea

 It’s official.  After 2 and a half years of waiting and longing and bitching and moaning I, Ashleigh Hill, am a New Yorker once more.  Or should I say a Brooklynite? Or a Red Hookian?  No matter how you slice it, I am back and ready for adventure.  Truthfully, Saturday was a scary day.  A month ago when I decided to move back to New York my mom decided that it was something I had to do alone; for the first time in my life, she wouldn’t be there when I moved.  I didn’t realize just how fucking big of a deal this was until Saturday morning, as I drove around Brooklyn with a lost cab driver, Googling directions to the apartment and praying to see a glimpse of something familiar.  It was scary as hell, having no idea what I was walking into, that fear that grabs your insides and makes you stop in your tracks.  As I stared at my stark room at 8 am Saturday morning, running on probably 2 hours of sleep, all I could think was, “WHAT HAVE I DONE?!!? I CANT DO THIS!”  I stood there for probably 5 minutes, just looking around the room and mumbling, “oh shit oh shit oh shit” under my breath.  Some tiny part of my brain, thankfully, had planned for this exact situation in the days before moving.  As soon as my bed and bedding was delivered a few days ahead of my arrival I began to run through my plan for settling in.  Item #1 was to make my bed so I could crawl into it and sleep.  In the midst of my freak out, that tiny pre-planning part of my brain started shouting, “ASHLEIGH: make. the. bed. MAKE. THE. BED.”  Pretty soon my “oh shit” chorus became a round, melding with “make the bed” and before I knew it, the bed was made, I had retrieved pjs from my enormous suitcase and was in bed.

Top: Dean and Kyle, Bottom: sights of Ikea

I woke up a few hours later with a plan.  I had spent the winding down to sleep time planning what I wanted to do with my room.  I made a list in my head.  I went over it as I slept.  When I woke up I wrote the list in my phone and set about preparing for my darlings, Dean and Kyle, to arrive for lunch and an Ikea trip.  There is no need to go into a ton of detail about this part of the day as most of it consisted of browsing the Ikea show room and laughing until my sides nearly split but needless to say we found 90% of the things on my list and brought them back to my apartment.  Here is what I will say about Dean and Kyle: these are they people you want as friends—the people who will haul their asses on a bus out to Brooklyn and spend 3 hours in Ikea with you, planning and mentally decorating your room and THEN return and set everything up.  These are the guys, the ones who stay until it is done.  The ones who, even though they are clearly tired, carefully move through the set up to make sure that everything is done correctly.  The ones who, after all is said and done, still want to go out and celebrate and don’t even get mad when you get everyone lost walking to the train.  These are the guys you want to have with you.  I am BEYOND grateful to them for all they did today (and to my new roommate, Kyla, as well, who has kept me sane the past week by working around weird mattress delivery schedules and giving me huge pieces of furniture).  I know that without these three I would have spent most of the day in my room, crying over a seemingly terrible decision.  These three, with their confidence and their caring, gave me the strength to be brave on a day when I missed my mom and dad more than anything.  And it is because of these three that I know that everything is going to be ok.  Because I know I have people in my corner, even if I’m not 100% sure where that corner is or what bus I need to take to get there.  And knowing this is half the battle.  Looking back on today, the best thing I did was to make a plan and then set out to execute it, detail by detail.  And the absolute best thing I did was chose to surround myself with people who wanted to help make that possible.

Things that are difficult might not always be fun, but they certainly help us learn in a way that nothing else can.  And sometimes these are the experiences we need, the ones that make us take a step back and make a detailed list, the ones that make us feel hyper aware, the ones that force us to take a risk.

Moving On Up

11.11.11. Truthfully, I didn't plan for this to be the day for me to make such a huge step.  I guess fate stepped in and started steering the ship (or fate was steering the ship the whole time and I am just surfing along the waves it creates for me).  Either way, today will forever be an important day for me.  It is the day I started a new adventure.  It is the day I realized just exactly how many articles of clothing I had (I had a 3 box pipe dream that was quickly dashed when I discovered a long lost bag of sweaters).  It is the day that I finally pushed myself out of the nest.  It is the day I began my real renaissance.

It is strange, days like this don't often come up and introduce themselves.  Important days like the day you start on your own path seem to happen more spontaneously.  You usually don't get 6 weeks to roll every detail over in your mind.  They are usually only fully realized in hind sight.  And to be honest, I don't know if the extra time has made me any better prepared.  It is still going to be a scramble right up until the end (and beyond really, since banks aren't opened tomorrow).  But today I know that everything is going to be ok.  Today I actually feel calm and level headed.  Today I feel ready, even if my suitcase is not.

Adventure is Around the Corner

Today is Tuesday, November 8th. And guess what?  I am moving. To New York. In THREE days. YES, it's true. An incredible living opportunity came up and so I'm moving. I can't believe it is here already. I feel like I've been waiting for this day for 2 years (which, if you've been even a casual reader of this hear blog you know is absolutely correct). And here it is, right in front of me.

And you know what? I'm both bursting with excitement and feeling a little bit scared.  This is by far the biggest risk I have ever taken. But despite this fact, I know with every fiber of my being that this is the right decision for me right now.  If I didn't go now, if I didn't take this risk, I would regret it for the rest of my life.  And you know, at 24 years old, that is a LONG time.

So I'm jumping, head first, into this next adventure.

Am I crazy to do this? Maybe.  Probably. Certainly. But to me, that's the most exciting part of this whole thing.

Certainly I wish I had a little more security moving out there (read: a job) but I know that it'll work out. I feel like I'm finally stepping into adulthood for real.  And that's the most exciting thing of all.

I'm Back!

New York was absolute magic.  Getting there was absolute hell (thanks for canceling my flight, San Jose International Airport) but after a 12 hour delay and getting to sleep in my own bed (which, truthfully, was awesome) I made it to my favorite place in the world.  And let me tell you, NYC did not disappoint.  She was beautiful and sunny (ok, it was a little hot) and I got to see all of my favorite people there.  I think I spent more time outside and walking around this weekend than I have in the last month, which was both awesome and sort of sad since, after all, I live in California where outdoor adventures are an integral part of our crunchy, hippie demeanors.  Anyway, I was having so much fun that I didn't snap a ton of pictures.  I was too busy being in the moment and trying to absorb as much sun and lovely friend time as humanly possible.  I'm still in the process of editing them but try to share some of them later this week.

New York has this way of re-glueing any loose pieces of my heart that might have come undone.  I feel revitalized and rejuvenated and I feel more creative and ready to tackle the rest of the summer.  And it is awesome.

Decisions

View from the Liberty Island Ferry, taken with Jenny Tighe about a hundred years ago.

A about a year and a half ago, I was offered a full time position at a regional theatre near my hometown.  At 22 years old, the idea of a full time job (with benefits!) was just about the most amazing thing I could ever imagine.  At that point, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life.  In fact, I still felt overwhelmingly like a child/college student.  I'd been living at home since graduating from NYU and I had no plan.  So, all of a sudden, here was this job at this great company and BAM--plan.  I had literally no idea what I was getting myself into, no idea the breadth of my responsibilities as programs manager of in-school outreach, no idea how much this job would challenge and change me, but I did know one thing--it wasn't going to be forever.

Almost as soon as I'd moved back to California I began to feel that old, familiar tug of New York City.  This wasn't surprising to me, New York is imprinted on my heart and soul.  So I put a timeline into place for this job-1 season, I said.  Just one and I'm out of here.  On to something else.  I made that choice, told my boss, and promptly forgot about it....until about 4 months ago when we started looking for my replacement.  Then, reality came crashing into me and I realized that I was soon to be unemployed.  After a brief moment of panic, I began to grasp on to any option I could find, all of them included moving out of my parents house to the East Coast (or Mid-West).  Easy, right?  Find a job out East and move my ass back, just like I'd always planned.

Not so much.

Because what I didn't factor in was the fact that, in between living in New York I'd still be living in California.  And I mean Living in California, capital L.  I'd be starting projects and making friends and building a life as an adult here.  I'd be Living.  And these projects turned out to be AMAZING (hello, The Violet!) and soul expanding.  And I began to feel like an adult here.  It happened about 5 months ago, when I realized that I was actually comfortable making decisions in my job and that, in my personal life, I didn't need to run things by my mom as much as I needed to use her as a sounding board for decisions I'd already made.  The change was actually noticeable, which was a very odd experience, let me tell you.

And so, with this new "adult" mindset, I step towards the ending my current job and looking for a new one...but now I have projects that I believe in (again, The Violet!) that truly need development and as much time as I can give to them.  So last night, after a huge amount of thought, I sat down with my mother and talked through my plan.  And I've decided that, as much as it pains me, I can't move to New York....right now.  It is absolutely still my plan to move there, but there are some things I need to stay and dedicate time to in California.  I haven't put any sort of timeline on this--I am going to stay until I feel like I can go.  I'm going to continue to reevaluate my situation throughout the summer and see how it goes.  Perhaps I'll be ready to move in September, perhaps in December.  Again, there's no timeline, which is perhaps the most terrifying thing I've ever decided.  It is also extremely liberating and I feel simultaneously responsible and childish for even considering it.


So....here goes nothing.

Ponder

listen

I've been thinking lately about those choices that lie ahead of us.  There are an infinite number of them just floating out there.  And at each moment, you can grab at any of them and, depending on which one your fingers hold onto tightest, the scenery changes.  Not to get all chaos theory up in here (mostly because I don't really understand it), but the ripples from these tiny changes extend in every direction and effect everything in front of you.  Isn't that just amazing?  I find this oddly comforting.

Whenever I am running late (which, to be honest, is often) and I find myself stressing over why the light won't change or why the person in front of me is driving like a 98,243,489 year old man, I usually stop and think to myself, "Ok, obviously I'm running late for a reason.  Is it to teach me the 'leave-earlier, why-don't-you?' lesson?  Or am I supposed to notice something here? I wonder who I am supposed to meet or what I am avoiding by sitting here."  (yes, it is a little bit self indulgent of me to say this.  Sometimes I'm late just because I'm easily distracted, but there are definitely other times when the universe puts things in my way.  I'm talking about those times). To me, this thought process takes a leap of faith.  It involves trusting that there is something out there much much smarter than me that is watching out for me as I move through the world.  I take comfort in this.  It is sort of beautiful, right?  I try not to imagine this being as a maniacal puppet master, pulling unseen strings (though it is a sort of unavoidable image, right?).  Rather, I like to think of it as warm, safe light ahead of me, illuminating the safest path.

So, what's ahead of me right now?  Well....the unknown.  Which is completely terrifying.  I realized yesterday that in a little more than 6 weeks, I'm officially done with my current job.  Like totally done.  Forever.  And as of right now, I have no plan.  Sure, I have things in the works (what up, The Violet?), but nothing concrete.  Part of me is completely terrified--what kind of crazy person wants to be unemployed with no plan?  And at the same time, another part of me is simultaneously calm and exhilerated because I trust that warm, guiding light completely.  As of right now it feels like that light is pointing me back towards my beloved NYC, which I literally couldn't be happier about, but that's not a definite. 

So stay tuned, folks.  Because times, they are a'changing.

It Gives You Wings

I feel like this might be self explanatory, but for those of you who don't love Liza as I do (and shame on you, by the way)....I am heading to my beloved NYC tonight after a YEAR long absence!  Yes, it is true (and I can't believe it), I haven't been back in a year (and 17 days...but who's counting...).  I am so unbelievably excited I am actually bursting at the seams.  My happiness cup overfloweth.


As my darling friend Rachel, who shall also be in NYC this weekend (thank god), said, "I'm going to hug everyone... and I mean everyone...in the whole city."  I hear ya, Rach.  It is going to be the most glorious home-away-from-homecoming that has ever happened.  Ever. So watch out, New York (and everyone in it), I'm a'coming.  And I've missed you terribly.


For those of you non-Liza fans (I can't believe any of you could be, but who knows) who chose to skip the video, I encourage you to watch it in its entirety.  Not only does she kill it at 2:07, she also does at 2:50... and 3:40.  Seriously, goosebumps abounding, I pinky promise.