Boxes

Probably at one point in your life you’ve had to move something heavy. Maybe a piece of furniture, a log in your yard, or a box of thrift store donations... or something like that. Let’s say it’s a box. Unless you’ve lived a gilded, pampered life, you’ve probably faced at least one box that you had to pick up without anyone around to help. It’s not impossible for you to move it, you’re strong enough, but you can tell by looking at it, and giving it a few test nudges that it’s going to be uncomfortable, and you’re going to be sore the next day. Let’s say it’s sitting by the front door so you see it as you’re coming and going each day and think, “Aw shucks. I didn’t take care of the box today. I’ll do it tomorrow.” After awhile you start to feel bad about it, possibly procrastinate more, promise yourself you’ll do it and then not follow through. It becomes a stone around your neck. Finally, for whatever reason, you do it. It’s just as cumbersome and uncomfortable as you’d feared to take it out to your car. The four stairs down your stoop suddenly feel treacherous so you gingerly measure each step. If the box is big enough you do this blindly, and go by feel, trusting that you can manage that one foot drop and still find purchase. On the way to your car your arms start to burn and shake, but you’re a few feet away so you power through out of stubbornness and finally heave the thing in the trunk. You spitefully drive it to Goodwill. Chuck it in the bin, leave without a tax receipt, and head off to greener pastures. When your errand is complete you feel a little lighter, but the next day the soreness you feel in your limbs reminds you throughout your everyday tasks that you stretched yourself thin and pushed a bit too hard the day before. But then after that passes you feel the sweet victory of not seeing that box next to the front door each time you go in and out. You feel satisfied that you completed the task! You did the thing! Hooray!

And then, maybe a few days later, maybe longer if you’re lucky, you wake up one morning and a new box is there. Lurking. Waiting. Judging.

My 40th year has been a series of dealing with heavy boxes. I’ve been confronting thankless task after thankless task that follows this pattern to the letter. Sometimes it’s as simple as a small shoebox by the front door labeled, “Just eat something, Julie.” Sometimes I’ll have an intimidatingly large looming pile. Sometimes the pile is structurally unsound and I don’t even know where to begin. All of the boxes are unified in the fact that doing them doesn’t feel that rewarding. A few times a friend has noticed the pile and helped me take a load out to my car. But it’s always the same, I get a few days of grace and then more boxes.

“And it's seeming that we're in agreement that the demon that we're fighting is not the exact same. But if we're teaming up and carrying the weight together we can miss a bit of back pain.” -Watsky

This year I left my husband who I’d been with for 15 years and moved out to live by myself. It hasn’t been easy. I hadn’t planned on having the stereotypical turn-40-divorce-husband-have-midlife-crisis year but well, they’re stereotypes for a reason I guess.

“Powder your nose, paint your toes line your lips and keep 'em closed. Cross your legs, dot your I's and never let 'em see you cry.” -Miranda Lambert

Some of my boxes are serious and some of them are just comparably stupid. My shyness makes it hard for me do to some of the things that extroverts take for granted, especially when I’m alone, so that’s been a huge challenge. I’ve had to learn how to bear up. (It’s like manning up but less sexist and with more growling.) I have had to learn how to live on my own without someone to take care of me when I get sick, navigate endless errands, and even deal with natural disasters. I’ve had to adjust to feeding myself full time, practiced self soothing, and discovered the outer limits of this introvert’s love of silence. I’ve learned how to practice self-care and, let me tell you, someone-else-care is a lot better.

And yeah, it’s not all bad. Only a tiny bit is bad. I’m unbelievably blessed to have the life I have, and I’m not trying to be all woe-is-me about this. I have a great support structure of people, I have a solid job, I have a roof over my head, healthcare, running water....the list goes on and on. I’m super lucky. That said, it’s important to write about this because other people have their own boxes to deal with.

“I’m going to leave it all out there to dry up.” -Nathaniel Rateliff

If you follow me on social media (which if you’re reading this you totally are because it’s not like I wrote this url on a post-it note and gave it to you) you’ve probably seen a lot of my better adventures. I’ve had a few people leave comments that are like, “Wow your life is so exciting.” Yeah. Exciting is one of those words that can be a pejorative or a superlative. But behind the scenes I’ve had some struggles. When I first moved in, my apartment made me sick and the dry wall dust from the remodel made my lymph nodes swell and caused me to have a sore throat for weeks. I left some of my pets behind when I moved because they prefer to be outside and it continues to rip my heart to bits. My apartment flooded and I didn’t have a floor for a few months and I didn’t even have a quiet place to lick my wounds in peace. I hosted and returned some dogs. I cried a lot. I was passed up for a promotion, and had some betrayals and insults to brave at work. I said way too many goodbyes to close friends. I was turned down for a job that was perfect for me. My heart was broken and still hasn’t healed. I started therapy and my therapist said, “Sorry dude, you’re doing everything right but you have to be patient. Sometimes things just suck.

“No enemies to call my own. No porch light on to pull me home. And where I was is beautiful because I was free.”- Sara Bareilles

But when you destroy your comfort zone the pay off is that now anything is possible. The same things that make you walk past those boxes probably also stop you from doing other fun things that you actually want to do! But you don’t do them because you’re too tired, have to cook dinner, have other cool only slightly less exciting things to do or whatever. Once I started pushing through the discomfort it made it easier to say, “Well, it’s going to be a logistical disaster but I’m going to do it anyway!”

“Born in November, autumn gonna bring heartbreak, fall in love is all I'm gonna need. All I really know, is that all I will achieve can be gone with that click, bang, onomonopeia” - G Yamazawa

This year I’ve done a ton of weird and wonderful stuff. (I haven’t seen that bucket list movie and I don’t care to, but I have done a lot of the kind of things I think that movie covered based on seeing the trailer and using context clues to infer the gist of the movie.)  I started writing a novel, sewed some things, and did some water color paintings. I started playing Dungeons and Dragons with a group of hilarious and creative people. My best friend got married and I took my other best friend as my date. I planned an epic weekend long glamping adventure bachelor party for him at a ramshackle hippy cabin, and my friends and I dumped four gallons of cheese balls over him as he sat half naked in a baby pool. I sent a peanut butter jar and a hot dog to space. I went to Orlando and saw the Atlas 5 launch and won the NASA Swarmathon. I went to Colorado by myself which was a huge milestone for me. I went car camping, introduced people to blobs, staged an elaborate going away ceremony for a friend where we baptized him with corn, covered myself in glitter and danced until 4 in the morning.  I visited NASA eleven times. I journeyed to New Mexico and saw Blue Hole, floated on my back in some hot springs while the moon came out and bats flew overhead, experienced the trippy out of body experience that is Meow Wolf, and gazed at the Milky Way while lightning flashed in the distance. I saw Nathaniel Rateliff with every seven foot tall guy in North Carolina, watched L1ef teach Durham how to pose, and went by myself to savor Danish String Quartet from the second row because I deserve only the best. I applied to about a million jobs and I interviewed for some exciting ones. (I was offered a few of those jobs.) I delved into online dating as though I were conducting a sociology experiment and went on dates with guys I already knew, and people I’d just met, but not anyone I met online. Instead, I celebrated Galentines and Galloween with my amazing co-hort of badass, type A, highly successful, take-no-shit lady friends and we ate at fancy restaurants but decided we’d rather have tacos. I had decadent high tea at Duke, yummy boba tea in DC and TX, and overpriced hippy tea at Honeysuckle tea house.  I braved the summer heat and went to outdoor concerts, a lavender farm with llamas, Audio Under the Stars and saw the symphony twice in one week! I was a jellyfish in a parade in downtown Hillsborough and blushed with pleasure as a little girl screeched, “BEEYOOTIFUL JELLYFISH AHHHHH” like she was losing her tee-tiny mind. I watched some of my favorite dudes graduate and helped them celebrate their success with pranks and parties. I saw a lot of movies at the fancy movie theater where they serve lobster and $2 bottles of prosecco. We finished our space project and survived integration week and after a tumultuous week at launch saw it successfully go to space! I got a saucy old timey portrait done, went on a ridiculous ghost tour, wore a sequined cocktail dress on a giant unicorn float, and hung out on a bunch of rooftops. I snuck into the attics at NASA, met two astronauts, and one of the women who inspired Hidden Figures. (Not all at once. Those are three different things.) I visited the Light and Sound installation at the NC Museum of Art twice, and went to the zoo, Lights at the Arboretum, Got to Be NC, a Duke basketball game, and the State Fair. I saw Hamilton in DC at the Kennedy Center and drank champagne in the front row where I could see the actors sweating, spitting, and crying. I saw Cirque du Soleil on ICE which is way more terrifying than normal Cirque du Soleil. I stalked the Southwest Airlines website for deals, took a bunch of Ativan, and flew all over the place. I went to Old Salem with my best friend from elementary school and convinced a costumed reenactor to give me a squash. I saw The Princess Bride at a farm where they let you snuggle baby goats and the big goats tried to eat your popcorn. I organized three 4th of July parties that involved wading, fireworks, rooftop gardens, snoballs, torrential rain, and crafts. I shrugged off the panopticon and dunked my chubby, freckled, bare, pink self into a spring at dusk in the mountains. I tried out a soundbath meditation and froze to death in the aerial silks while I listened to the mystical vibrations of crystal bowls. I never put the toilet paper on the holder, lined my sheet pans with aluminum foil, and bought vegan margarine because it’s easier to put on toast than real butter and sometimes that’s what I want.

“Cut my hair so I could rock back and forth without thinking of you. Learned to talk and say whatever I wanted to. And I walked off you, and I walked off an old me.”- Maggie Rogers

But of all the wild things I’ve done this year I treasure the quiet time I’ve spent with friends the most, because that’s what I miss the most from the destruction of my comfort zone. I miss sleeping under the same roof as other people who love me. Cooking with someone or being fed. Reading books in complete silence that’s only broken by a pause to share a good bit. Snuggling, hugs, and physical connection.

Don’t take these small things for granted if you’re lucky enough to have them, but go ahead and move those boxes.

And move any of the boxes you have in storage, too.

“We'll all be fine. I promise that we almost got it right. I see all the signs but knew it wouldn’t happen overnight. Oh we got more bright days on the way! Little blessings on the way!- Part Time Cooks