An end.

Tonight I'm sitting in the living room of my house in Galveston. I'm on the couch, like I so often have been before, but it's different.

Much of the house's contents been packed into boxes, and many of the remaining items sold or given away. Only three people, besides myself, remain here, and little more than a week stands before they, too, will leave. The house will be empty, the keys turned in, and the place I've called my escape, my sanctuary, and my home for two years will be just another house on another street in a town called Galveston.

Five months ago, I fought to leave this place, losing tears and sleep and hope over the idea that I might have to remain nearby. Yet even after I settled in to a city I love, a city that I am confident is right for me, I kept being drawn back to this dirty, beautiful island. This is the fourth trip I've made, and it was planned well in advance, with full knowledge that it would be the last.

Tonight my heart is breaking to know that my friends, who I've grown to love and hate and everything in between, won't be here waiting for me when I want to come back. They have been, and will be, tossed across the country toward jobs and families and new adventures.

Never again will I ignite the stove with a lighter because it hasn't worked properly in months, or fight the bathtub faucets for the right to shower in hot water. I'll never sit on this sofa and reminisce about that one time I had shingles and spent a week on it, stoned, because the doctor gave me vicodin. I won't ask Luke to change the light bulbs because I can't reach them, or sit out on the porch with Maggie while she smokes a cigarette and we talk about life and boys and how to decipher each. I won't jump into a living room dance party with our favorite music station blaring from the TV, or have brunch at the kitchen table, family-style, laughing about the latest stories.

Sure, I can always come back to Galveston. I'll bring friends or a boyfriend or even my kids someday. We'll go to the aquarium at Moody Gardens and play on the beach. Maybe we'll catch a movie out under the stars on the Strand, or take the ferry over to Bolivar and watch for dolphins on the way. We'll get dinner and Blue Bell and a sunburn, and we'll talk about what a great weekend it was.

But it won't ever be the same.

I think one of the hardest things about growing up is realizing that life is on a trajectory that we simply do not have the power to interfere with. Just as our lives move forward and change, so do those around us. In the last year, I helped move my parents, my friends, and myself. Friends have gotten married and had children and started new jobs and lost old ones. Nothing is as it was, and though I want to cling to some sort of normalcy, something steady and true that spans the years, it's just not there. Home and family have become relative terms, flexible enough to accommodate the current situation, yet still powerful enough to really mean something when employed.

This weekend, on top of everything else, also marks exactly two years since I packed my car and set off on this grand adventure. Yesterday was the second anniversary of my departure; Monday will be of my arrival. I can hardly believe that two years - 730 days - have passed between then and now.

It's been an incredible adventure.

Thank you, Galveston, for the memories. You'll always have a piece of my heart.

Much love from Texas,

C-Jo

Since I quit blogging about books, I have time to read them.

Reading this:

(via thefrugalista.com)

I'm inspired.

February = No Buy Month.


Anybody in?

Even with a Delorean, one can only move forward in age.

Tonight someone commented on the friends I've made in Austin, incredulous at the number I've accumulated in a relatively short time being here.

At first, I pointed out the friends with us who were from other places, whom I'd met long before. But then I realized that he was right.

I don't know why God decided that I should be so loved, but I'm grateful to Him for it. I only hope that I can return that love at every opportunity, to show others what they mean to me, to care for them and love them and return the abundance of blessings I've been given by their presence.

*****

In five days, or four if you're in the Eastern time zone, I will turn 25. Tonight I celebrated in the way to which I've grown accustomed: with a game of laser tag. What started out as a funny idea four years ago has become my favorite event of the year, a tradition that has continued with every turn of the calendar despite changes in geography and life and social circles.

I can tell you stories about every year of the tradition. Wonderful, unique stories that changed from year to year. I can tell you not everyone who attended, but many of the key people, friends who came once or year after year, but who left an impression on me that made them unforgettable.

*****

A year ago at this time, I was making a list: 25 things to do before I turned 25. I don't even have to look at it to tell you the results. There are some things I accomplished right away, some that I anguished over the thought of. There are some that came easily, and there are some that I failed miserably at, remaining tucked away in the back of my mind, waiting for me to buckle down and crank them out.

At the time that I wrote it and shared it with you, I had intended to return to it in a year, to tell you what I'd done and hadn't done. And yet the list became, in the course of the last year, during which it was alternately celebrated and ignored, intensely personal. My accomplishments, some of which happened under circumstances that I wouldn't have expected or desired, became something to hold close to my heart, not ready to be out in the open, under the glare of the sun.

 *****

On Thursday, I will be 25. I will go to bed on Wednesday night as a 24-year-old, and wake up with a new digit by which to describe myself.

It's a moment I've been dreading for months. Something about 25 makes you stop, makes you think, makes you analyze where you are in life, whether you ever expected to be in that place or not. It makes you wonder, if you're single like me, what you've done wrong that you've spent the last few years watching your friends build their white picket fences while you march into your late 20s alone. It makes you look at your bank account, your bills, your job, and your friends, and question whether you're making the right decisions with any or all of them because after all, you're not getting younger and you really ought to be thinking about these things.

Age may be just a number. But my number speaks to the wisdom of passing out of youth, to the energy that still puts a spring in my step, to the idealism held only by one who hasn't seen the worst of it quite yet, but the maturity of a person who's seen enough, and to the opportunity to make something more of what I have.

As the day approaches, I'm finding peace with that number.

*****

In five days, or four if you're in the Eastern time zone, I will turn 25. And if tonight is any indication, it's going to be a wonderful year.

Things I don't want to deal with tonight:

1) My apartment is a mess.

2) I only half put away my laundry last night, and the rest is on my chair/floor.

3) My apartment seems to be quite insect-friendly, and my bug-killing stuff is missing the instructions, which means I could either take the risk of killing both the bugs and my dog, or play it safe and deal with the buggaroos sharing my home.

4) I have cookies to bake and hats to make, but I've started neither one.

5) I have approximately 4 and 5 months, respectively, to find myself dates for Siew and my brother's weddings.

6) I have approximately 4 and 5 months, respectively, to get my ass into wonder-woman shape so that I strut in looking hott and feel less awkward about being potentially dateless for Siew and my brother's weddings.

7) There's a wooden chair in the back seat of my car that probably should be relocated to my dining room table.

8) I spend too much time making ridiculous lists and not enough doing things like dealing with the aforementioned items.

Not there. HERE.

This makes me giggle.

On a related noted, one of my "resolutions" (if you will) for the new year is to instigate "Domestiweek." Basically, no eating (or drinking) out for the first week of every month. It's going to be interesting. But dang I'm going to save a wad.

Bear with me while I gush a moment.

It's 10:59pm and I need to be not awake, but here I am thinking about life and how much I LOVE AUSTIN. It's ridiculous to love a place this much because it's really just a city, and yet it's not. It's a jump start to my spirit, and an opportunity to be renewed and a refocusing of who I am and who I want to be.

Moving here was the BEST DECISION EVER, and to those people, known and unknown, who made it happen, I have nothing but the deepest gratitude. Thank you for believing in me and believing in who I could be enough to pave my way.

Cheers, and I'm out. 11:02. Not bad.

Things I love:

1) Quiet Sunday evenings.
2) Long chats about boys, life, and boys.
3) Having an awesome church home.
4) Liking what I see in the mirror.
5) Clean laundry.
6) Puppy kisses.
7) 4-mile early morning trail runs.
8) TOMS shoes.
9) Cozy sweats.
10) Delightful lunches with new friends.
11) The promise of a great week.
12) Newfound confidence.
13) Baby herb plants.
14) Puppy yawns (seriously, it's the cutest thing Bennet does).
15) Soup in a teacup.
16) White wine.
17) Being a person friends can confide in.
18) Crayons.
19) Pink dresses that don't fit (yet).
20) Austin, Texas.
21) Cheesy holiday festivities.
22) Grace that frees me from the things I've done.
23) Brianna's Poppyseed Salad Dressing.
24) My tiny studio apartment.
25) The hope of the Christmas season.