october 18

I do not need to read anymore journals.

I don’t. You should see the Journals folder in my bookmarks. I spend entirely too much time reading about other people’s lives. The time I spend reading about other people’s lives is time I could spend having my own life and having something interesting to write about.

But, you know, Beth is on hiatus and probably won’t ever return to the daily entry. There goes my morning read. My other regular read has taken a new direction and I’ve lost interest. And my other mainstays are all going through “stuff” and don’t update as often. So there’s room for a new one, right? Uh-huh.

Ugh. So my new journal is not new to anyone else but I love love love Mo. If you don’t already, read her. Read her whole past year. That’s what I did for the entire afternoon. I’m such a slacker.

That damned East Bay.

Besides having her life turned upside down, Mo just moved to the East Bay. Why does this place keep coming up in my life these days? I hadn’t been back in five years until two weeks ago, and I hadn’t really thought about it that much. It’s like I need to go back and finish something. It was so long ago, if there is something there, I can’t remember what I forgot to finish.

So I called Nanna May. If she didn’t have the answer to this perplexing Bay Area puzzle she would at least tell me that I’m not crazy to be obsessing about this. (No, May is not my grandmother. A* always seems to think I need to explain that to people because he says if I call May my nanna people will think she’s my grandmother. And they do. But usually, in the context of the story, as is the case here, it doesn’t matter. So I’ll explain who she is some other time.)

May introduced me to Berkeley fifteen years ago. I don’t remember a whole lot about that trip except for this one image: amidst all the crazy colors and commotion of Telegraph, there was a middle-aged hippy woman with frizzy gray hair, weaving in and out of the crowd, blowing soap bubbles with a plastic wand and bottle of bubble juice. At the time, this one scene changed my whole life. I knew this was where I wanted to be. Where I was supposed to be. I needed to be somewhere where I could blow bubbles in the street. Berkeley seemed to be so alive and so foreign and fabulous to this eleven-year-old girl who already couldn’t wait to grow up and just get her own life.

So while I talked to May we concentrated on that image, on the feelings I had when I was at Café Milano, the panic and depression I felt when I realized I had not done all the things I had wanted to do when I lived there. How I felt I had squandered an opportunity.

Even though I’ve been thinking about this for the past few weeks--I’ve written about it, talked about it a little with A*-- I think I still haven’t worked through all my feelings about it. I started to get choked up when I was talking about this with May. I realized that all those years I spent feeling trapped by my marriage I was really trapped in my mind. I had come to this realization years ago, but I hadn’t worked through it completely. Yes, I knew that I was holding myself back, it wasn’t A* and it wasn’t my marriage. But realizing that I do this to myself and actually doing something about it are two different things. I’ve intellectualized the problem but I haven’t processed all the feelings of guilt and disappointment. I certainly haven’t solved it. I’m seeing this recurring pattern in my life.

But even that isn’t the whole story.

When I think about the Bay Area and my time there and what I need to do now to change my life…I don’t know how else to describe it but to say…I feel like I’m looking at a photograph or a puzzle and someone is whispering in my ear, “There’s more. It’s right under your nose. Look a little closer.”

I really feel like there’s something else down there, not something in my past but something in my future. I don’t mean moving there or anything like that. But almost like a second chance. And I also have a feeling that this is a test. That I just have to trust this feeling and start putting things in motion to find out what it is. Like I can’t just sit back and see what the end of the story is. I have to do something brave to get to the end. Or the beginning.

Or maybe I’m still thinking too literally. I’m not sure. But I can’t wait to find out what this next part is. This is like someone giving you a hint about your Christmas present and you know whatever it is it’s going to be good.