4/28/2009 - In Reverse

When I was in middle or early high school, in the muddled middle ages of my adolescent life during which I regularly attended church and youth group in an attempt to be a Good Christian, I found myself participating in a trust fall exercise (Step 1: Get a bunch of peers to stand around and hold out their hands in the form of a makeshift net. Step 2: Stand on a chair. Step 3: Trust your peers. Step 4: Fall backwards, knowing in your heart of hearts that the hands of your trusty friends will be there to catch you). To make a short story shorter, I went into the trust fall with much excitement and a complete lack of reservation (this is youth group, I told myself, these guys don't fuck around!) only to be - yes, you guessed it - dropped. During the trust fall.

Thanks a lot, peers. 

Anyway, since the youth group leader jumped in at the last moment to grab my skull before it was dashed on the ground I emerged unscathed. Afterwards, however, everyone kept asking me if I was okay and I couldn't stop myself from crying; they were being so nice. 

It's like that, now. I can carry myself with a passable degree of poise and composure until somebody expresses their concern or offers to help and then I'm gone in a siren of wails and a whole mess of hiccups. My friends have been so fantastically, earth-shatteringly kind I don't even know what to do with myself. They've been hugging me, distracting me, offering me their time, their food and their homes. Even as someone who recreationally scoffs at religion, I can say that I am, without a doubt, deeply blessed. One of the women I work with (whom I adore; she's the closest thing I've had to a mentor during my college career) offered to let me and Moxie stay at her house, if we needed it, or to come over for dinner. 

As someone who always wants to take care of things herself, this outpouring undermines my false confidence. The fact that I want to fall into their arms and take up all of their time gets under my skin and reminds me that I'm just a scared kid, desperately in need of some sort of comfort. 

Today I worked on reversing all my plans and fixing up the details so that I could skip town come June. But no. Just as I was panicking because I'd come to realize how good one of the jobs I have a fair shot at here in the city could be for me (but how could I take it, when it meant staying here, where everything hurt?), I got an email from Scott explaining everything, calming all of my fears and snapping everything, suddenly, into place.

This is day three.

On day three, everything has changed.