Happy Ypsilantiversary (to me)!

A year ago, I moved across the state -- from Kalamazoo to Ypsilanti. (Yes, I have a penchant for oddly named Michigan cities. Next up: Hell and Bad Ax.)

I'd been living in Kalamazoo for five years, which was about two to three years longer than I'd lived any place in my adult life. I had finally reached that point in my social life where my friends weren't just "work friends" or "people I know from that one class I took" -- but friends-friends. If I wanted to go out for drinks at the last minute, I actually had people I could call who would go out to drinks with me and not be like, "Eww, that weird girl from that one class I took wants me to go to happy hour. How do I tell her that we don't really have a last-minute-happy-hour kind of relationship?"

In addition to leaving the longest home I'd ever known, I also left a fifteen-year career in teaching for an office job. I will openly admit that I'm not good at many things (see: basically every hobby I've attempted that involves using a musical instrument or doing a physical activity). But I was really good at teaching. What can I say? I like a captive audience. And a captive audience who must be nice to me because I'm giving out the grades? Even better!

But, despite all that, I thought this move was going to be easy.

After all, it was one of the shortest moves I'd ever done -- Kalamazoo is less than two hours away. I'd even been to Ypsilanti before. I'd seen my apartment and met some of my new coworkers before my move -- which definitely wasn't the case the half dozen different times that I'd moved overseas or even the case for when I originally moved to Michigan.

I've also moved a lot.

The funny thing about starting your life over again on a regular basis is that you start to think you're good at it  -- like moving your entire life is the equivalent of painting watercolors or knitting scarves or goat yoga or any other hobby that you just need to do a lot of and then you'll eventually get better at it (except for maybe goat yoga -- I feel like that might depend on the goats and goats are never really ones for self-improvement).

And maybe for some people this is true. But it's never really been the case for me. Which shouldn't be all that surprising. After all, I don't really have a good track record of getting better at hobbies. I either quit them after an initial frenzy of buying ALL THE THINGS (see: crafting, backpacking and snowshoeing). Or I keep doggedly doing them until my body is like "Umm, stop this NOW, or I will make your knees self-destruct" (see: running).

When I initially moved to this side of the state, I had great plans for all the awesome, fun, big-city things I'd do now that I'm so close to Ann Arbor and Detroit. I'd finally join a writing group and become a regular at story slams. I'd go to museums on weekends and dive bars on weekdays. I'd hit up all the cool festivals. I'd have a boyfriend in a band.

And, then, I spent approximately six months on my couch.

When I look back on those six months, I recognize what I was going through. It was the same thing I was going through when I first moved back from Asia over six years ago -- the thing that once made me pull over on my drive home from work because I was crying too hard and couldn't see the road. It was the same thing that I felt when I first moved to Brazil twenty years ago, and I realized that just because I'd moved to South America, didn't mean I was suddenly samba-dancing in the street.

Call it depression or culture shock or homesickness or whatever.

Maybe like running my body is just not built for starting over again and again. I come from hearty Midwestern farm-stock with hearty Midwestern farm-stock bodies -- the type of people who've lived on the same farm for generations, the type of people who take root.

And, yet, I keep on uprooting myself.

But, every single time, it has been worth it. I've met amazing people and learned new skills (sadly, samba was never one them).

The same has been true about my move to Ypsilanti.

I've met some great new people -- including a few people I could call right now and invite out to drinks and I'm pretty sure they wouldn't think I'm weird for doing it (although it is 11:00 AM on a Sunday... so maybe they would?). I've also learned that I'm good at other things besides teaching -- like organizing shared drive folders and spotting errant apostrophes (I know! So glamorous!).

Sure, I do miss having a captive audience... but, then again, I have this blog. How about if you all just pretend I'm giving you a grade and be super nice to me, okay?