If you've known me long enough, you'll know that in the spring of 2008 my life plan blew up in my face.
I had the man of my dreams, had just nabbed my first "real" job after undergrad, and was headed towards the life I envisioned for myself. Then the dream man decided to become a Capuchin friar, and the whole dream package just imploded on me.
So I ran away. Literally. On a whim I applied to a couple of graduate schools. Then I moved to Kansas to go to K-State about 8 months after I'd even first had an inkling that I wanted to go to graduate school. I was sure that there, like in all other places, I would be as shy and isolated as ever, but I wasn't.
My fellow graduate students at K-State were the most friendly and amazing people I've ever known in my life. I love them all. Special acknowledgement to Christy for all her efforts in creating our graduate school community that brought shy nerds like me comfortably into the same group as crazies like Nic. Then, of course, my friendship with Nic helped to develop my friendship with Mariya, who is quite honestly my movie and TV soulmate. I also have a unique bond with her wife Lacey who is one of the few people that I can have comfortably in my bubble. Having Lacey around was like having one of my sisters close.
I had Lindsey who is incredibly unlike me in personality, but who likes similar books and movies. She's the best roommate I've ever had, mostly because she's the only roommate I ever had that successfully captured all the best elements of living with my sister Molly without the sisterly fights. Lindsey was great for a bad night that needed to be spent watching cheesy movies, or a trip to find chicken fingers and fries (my favorite comfort food). She's also the only non-sister roommate to cook and eat with me regularly. I really loved having a roommate to be like family and share mealtimes with. She's my soul-sister for sure. We also share a mutual love and mother-ship of my cat.
I want to move back to KS to be close to the few friends who remain, but I'm beginning to worry that I shouldn't. What if I don't make new friends wherever I get a job? Most of the KS remnants only have short-term plans for KS. As these people move on to bigger and better things, am I going to end up isolated and miserable?
I'll be honest and mention that I had a lot wrapped up in moving a couple of hours away from Chris, hoping that maybe we could work things out. Nightly online Scrabble with Chris has been a major redeeming factor of my time living in my current city, which I hate. I never wanted to move to the same city as Chris because if things didn't work, I didn't want to regret my location. Chris, though, is now dating someone else.
Needless to say, as soon as I found out about Chris's new lady friend, I quit the Chris thing cold turkey. For me, I'll never kick the habit as long as we're friends. I'll keeping hoping, and that's just not okay. It's going to be rough for a while adjusting to not playing Scrabble during my evenings. Who will I talk to while watching Star Trek and crocheting? There are few friends you can bother quite that much.
Blergh. As if my impending joblessness weren't stresseful enough.
Regardless, at this point I still have the largest concentration of friends in KS, so I'll keep applying for jobs there, but I'm going to apply for some close to Christy and Ryane out east, and I'll apply for some close to home too. I've enjoyed being far from my family, but I do know that my mom and my sisters are some of the most reliable friends that I have.
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