Wine musings

Sitting here, drinking wine and munching on aged white cheddar. Thinking about what I am leaving behind, (without a twinge of sadness. Except when I think about Jessica!). I'm leaving behind all the people that I grew up with, all my family, and anything that I've ever known. I'm leaving them for a city I hardly know but love already, a huge ramshackle old house with more character than my funeral home apartment, and a group of friends I barely know, but fit in with better than any group of friends I've ever known. Don't get me wrong. I have amazing friends. But each of them come from a different group, a group that I don't really fit into.

Take Jessica, for example. I love her. She is one of my very best friends. We're so much alike, and yet not alike in enough ways that we continually learn from each other and surprise each other. But I don't fit in with her friends. I love her friends, and I love hanging out with them, but as far as a "group," I don't quite fit.

Karen. Karen probably knows me better than anyone else, (except for maybe Iha, but Iha and I haven't been close for a couple years now, and I've changed quite a bit), and we are each others group, which I really don't like. I don't like being her only friend. She likes to remind me all the time how she always talks about me and how Im her best and only friend, and all I can think is, then get more friends.

Jayme. I tried to be a part of that group for a while but...I don't quite fit in there either. It's like I'm too old for them or something. I have different values, different goals. I have good friends among that group, but as a whole, I just don't fit there either.

Back to Iha. We are awesome friends, but we don't have the same group of friends. His friends always looked at me out of the corner of their eyes with a glance that spoke a million words. Such as, I don't get you. You aren't like us.

I can't think of anyone else right now. Oh, Zach. Zach has Jack's friends. Although me and Zach will always be best friends, he has a group. Everyone else has a group. I have a group composed of people I've snatched from their respective groups. Which is fine. But here, I have a group of friends that are my own. I have a group of friends with similar values, mindsets, people who are offbeat and don't really fit in anywhere else but here. Megan and I were talking about how you have to be a bit crazy to live here, in Haymarket or possibly any co-op. She asked, "Have you met anyone living here or who has ever lived here who is normal?" I couldn't name a single one :)

I can't wait until this is my life. Sure, it's my life now, but it's different. Right now, I'm on fellowship. I live in a different room. I don't have any of my shit here, and I can't do many things that I would normally. Like blow glass. But when I come back, I'll have a (real!) job, a different, cooler room, and will (hopefully) have my own glass studio. I will be able to save money, and in a couple years I will be traveling around the world again. And I will have a whole other group of friends that I never would have met had it not been for this Chicago experience. Dare I say it, but I'm happy.

I would have liked to have ended this post there. But I got to thinking about how unhappy I would be if I went home, unsure of my next step. Because I would accept my job back at the funeral home. I would start working at the Sunset again. And I would be sucked back into a life I've been trying to escape for years. And years. I am coming to a place I don't know shit about, leaving a place I know everything about, and it's scary. But when I think about all the Gig Harbor preppy types, the 20 year old moms and working at the local restaurant with people you went to high school with, a slow grin crosses my face as I realize no longer will I sit among them knowing how much I don't belong. Because I have escaped. I have found my home. A place where I fit in. I've found what I've been searching for my entire life. And I am happy. Very happy.