For a significant part of my morning, I fell down the rabbit hole of cleaning out old emails and filing away others. My Gmail account has over 11k emails in it. It was over 12k when I started (I deleted or moved over 500). I was looking for an email from my job search back in 2019. Back then, I was applying to jobs in North Carolina, California, and pretty much any United Way anywhere in the country. I was looking to see if I had applied to a job (back then) that I recently saw listed. I used to track those things on a spreadsheet, but during one of the computer switches, I must have deleted the spreadsheet or saved it to an external drive and never moved it over to my new computer. As with many things, my initial search proved fruitless and I got sidetrack in the archival dig.
2019 and 2020 were rough and disruptive years for me. Given that everyone close to me survived the pandemic, I can’t lay claim to the worst of 2020’s roughness… but in the span of about 20 months, I lost a relationship, a significant friendship, two cats, a job, and I moved twice. The mound of emails from that time period, especially the job search emails and the move-related emails, were a reminder of just how unsettled things were. I had receipts from airbnbs in multiple cities. I had emails from a realtor in St. Louis where I was a final-round candidate for a job. I had emails from Zillow about the prices of homes in Memphis where I was certain I was going to buy a house and settle in. I had emails from realtors in Yardley where I was selling my house. I had calendar invites, moving quotes, truck rental quotes, account update emails, address change emails, uber and lyft receipts, and dozens of job applications. Of course, there were also the Amazon confirmations from when the world shut down and all shopping had to be done online.
Sometimes, I keep these things because I think they could be the impetus for a story or a poem. Remember that time Robert from the supermarket texted to say there was a no sausage or ground beef and how after we wiped the grocery bags down with lysol, we made marinara sauce and got dressed up as though we were going out to dinner all of which took our minds off of the daily news of case counts and surges? Sometimes, I keep these emails because I was too lazy to delete them the first time around and then they get buried.
Looking back, I wonder how things would have been different had I followed a different path… if things could have been less turbulent or felt less frenzied? What if I hadn’t landed the job in Memphis or what if I had moved out west during either of my previous two searches? What if I had skipped State College altogether? Would I have ever taken the risk I’ve taken now or had the two-month road-trip across America? Would I have gotten to this point where what I’ve prioritized in life is where I want to be and how I want to live as opposed to what I want to do (for work) or who I hope to find (a partner)?
Prompted by a poem I read, I’ve spent the past two mornings journaling about what I used to envision growing old together would look like. After reading the poem, I was feeling a little sorry for myself because there have been times in my life when that vision was pretty clear – at least in terms of who would be by my side. When the feelings of self-pity subsided, there was a realization that the “vision” hasn’t changed much. If anything, I think it looks a lot like the life I’m living now but with some eventual someone else in the mix. It was always a fluid vision in which two people enjoy each other’s company enough to do things together and enthusiastically find ways to connect and grow over time. That is to say, for several years, especially when I wasn’t feeling fulfilled in several domains (job, relationship, climate, culture, community, etc.), I was struggling to figure out what I wanted my own life to look like.
Now, feeling far more settled and at home than I did in Memphis or State College – by which I mean happy with the options before me (nature, creative outlets, weather, geography), I’m also recognizing (or re-recognizing) the value of having a quality “who” by my side. The “vision,” for me, always would have been one of co-creation – one in which we both bring our similarly aligned visions to the table and piece together something new. In some respects, I need (maybe benefit is a better word) someone who might push me a bit, someone who can show me new things, someone who will encourage me to see the world differently and be patient with me as I learn their movements, needs, and dialects.
I’m far more independent than I was five or six years ago, but I have plenty of moments when I shrink back and could use a nudge. A perfectly good example of this is how I’ve spent my day today. I’m going to a show tonight. It’s about an hour drive south from from where I am. since I’d be heading to the South Bay (Palo Alto, Mountain View, Sunnyvale) I briefly considered spending the day in San Jose and then going to the show. No sooner did I consider that, I started stacking up all of the reasons not to spend the day in San Jose – not least of which is the fact that I do not know the way to San Jose (cheesy song reference). But sure, getting there and getting around was a barrier – not an insurmountable one, but a barrier nonetheless. I could take the train, but then I’m relying on taking the train back late at night after a concert. I could drive, but then I’d have to drive around San Jose, figure out where to park, etc. etc. etc. And this was the thing… for me, getting lost together seems more fun than getting lost alone. Or conversely, having someone who has done it before and can help navigate can be nicer than figuring it out on my own. This is why I haven’t really ventured much outside of the city. This is why, aside from a date in Healdsburg, I haven’t gone out to wine country, or to Mt. Diablo, or to Santa Cruz. I’d be more inclined to do those things if they were being suggested by, or shared with, someone else.
And so, instead of spending the day walking around San Jose, I sat in and purged emails. Emails from a time in my life that marked a change in how I move through the world – a major stride towards a more independent and emotionally self-sufficient self. For the first time in my life, I had set off in a wildly new direction where I knew no one and had no local supports. Wherever I’ve gone since then, I’ve managed to figure it out. Here, perhaps more than those other places, I feel more content to do things on my own, but not always. Not always.