cheers to seniors and all that is to come

I thought I would have moved on by now. Well, to be honest, I have moved on. I don't curl up on my marriage bed and weep like I did circa May 2011 after abruptly graduating from college, getting married, and moving out of the Xie house (pronounced "she"...it was our landlord's last name and way too punny not to use for the name of a house full of girls). But there was something remarkable that happened between 2007-2011...I became me. I'm by no means complete or polished or even tactful yet, and I still look at those years with some rolls of the eyes, some blushing, some tsk-ing...But it's amazing what happens to you when you allow change to occur. The older I get, the less spontaneous I am and the more stuck I feel in the daily grind. It's a fight to constantly look at the world with arms and eyes wide open (cue Creed...thus cue groaning), using every opportunity to wonder and doubt and be shocked and learn.

College was filled with wondering, doubting, being shocked, learning, crying, laughing...But sometimes I felt the pressure to constantly be soaking up new experiences, particularly while abroad, which was sometimes exhausting (remember my post about being an introvert?). There is something comforting in routine, something great about simplicity, and Friday nights when you can always expect homemade pizza or sushi and good drink. I tend to look at college with a complete fondness for every single year and friend and moment. It was Utopian in my memory. How could anything be better than a house full of 9 girls, laying out in the front yard to study in April, World's Fair Park runs and Ultimate Frisbee, watching super depressing movies like Fargo and There Will Be Blood (also...Teeth...Ashleigh?) and laughing hysterically so as not to cry, friendship bread nearly every day of the week, room mate chatter around a single baking pan of cake, girl arms intertwining as forks shovel the [usually] Caitlin-made deliciousness into our mouths? I mean, there is nothing like it. At all.

However, college wasn't perfect. There was brokenness (but also redemption), lots of confusion, so many papers and stress and too much estrogen in one house. And on this other side of the fence where the grass seemed like it would be shriveled and dead and boring, it isn't. I haven't stopped learning. I haven't stopped relishing good music and sleeping late and planning random trips. I haven't stopped being friends with my loves. Two years out, and I remember freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior years like they were yesterday. I am still getting to travel and be spontaneous (and BONUS - I get to do it with my very best friend..."it" being traveling...duh). I can finally afford home cooked meals and even buy the materials to mess up a recipe here and there. I don't have to think about studying when I get home. I keep meeting these amazing people no matter where I go...they weren't just confined to UT. I'm even realizing that as terrifying as 30 may seem, 30 is sort of the new 20. Which I never thought I would say.

So seniors, cry your eyes out. Eat an extra slice of graduation cake. Have a few more nights at Sassy's. But then stop crying and smile, because it's not over. You are on the brink - even though it sometimes feels like life is ending. You've been alive for 22 years, and four of them - FOUR - hold your heart. It just gets better. Yes, you'll still go dancing; yes, you'll still get to have girl sleepovers even if you're married (I do); yes, you'll get to eat too much cake; and yes, you'll keep being friends with the ones who stole your heart 4 years ago (but you have to make it happen). There's even a new sweetness to these relationships that I know I took for granted, because A. we're so far apart, B. there's always a greater fondness for the ones who saw you naked all the time both emotionally and physically and loved you anyway, and C. the old friends are the ones you can call and will appreciate every new story you have to tell about this brave new world and the place you have in it.

My challenge to you is to make 30 your 20. Don't kill yourself, but have goals, particularly with exercise, because otherwise you'll be too tired after work to think about that. I made it my goal to be in better shape in my 20's than I was when I was 20. Think about things like refined sugars and high fructose corn syrup like all the cool crunchy people you know, but don't stop eating chocolate chip cookies. My suggestion would only be to not pound 25 all at once like you did in college because you will start feeling the effects of late nights out, too much alcohol, and high sugar intake way worse than you used to, starting at around age 24 and a half (ugh). Also eat more fruits and weird vegetables like kale. They're so good for you, and you can even trick yourself into loving them in smoothies without realizing they're there. It's great.

Finally - a toast to my girls near and far away and across oceans and who I haven't seen since a Canadian wedding nearly two years ago: you all made college what it was, and you are continuing to make my life what it is today. I'll drink to that.

me and Kelsey, Meredith's 21st birthday, Fall 2009

UT Game, Fall 2009

RUF Halloween party where all my roomies wanted to be the colors of the rainbow,
and I insisted on being a sheep.

Me and Sweet Melanie in Florence, Study Abroad, 2010

Leah and Michael's wedding, Fall 2010

Freshman year dorm room birthday party, Fall 2007

Freshmen hayride, Fall 2007

Halloween party, Fall 2007

Snow day with the Xies with Caitlin's cheesy biscuits in  Spring 2011

RUF Barn Dance, Fall 2008

Rhossili Bay, Wales, 2010

Bath, England, 2010, after a long day of being lost

Winter conference, spring 2008

One last hoorah with the old roomies, Spring 2011

Study Abroad 2010 in Swansea at either Oceana, Play, or Revs.

Meredith's wedding, 2011

Xies on Max Patch, Fall 2009

Ministry Team Retreat, Fall 2010

RUF Ministry Team

When Leah became a McCall, Fall 2010

RUF Christmas party with the roomies, 2008

Max Patch with Hopey, Fall 2010

That time when the Xies had a pig named Franklin (a few days after I got engaged - 2010)

U2 Concert - Fall 2009

Last  Barn Dance, Fall 2010 

Happy Graduation, guys!

I have this friend

I got this book from the library yesterday, and so far it's proven to be super intriguing. I didn't really know you could write a narrative about running. Or even that there is a story that goes with running. I also didn't really know I would ever talk about running affectionately or think of it and myself as friends. I made peace with the horrible idea of more-than-walking when I signed up for a 5k in the 10th grade because one of my best friends said she wondered if we could do it. I began to train a bit reluctantly and sort of got the hang of it, but Running and I we were in this really unhealthy relationship. A little bit of attraction, but a lot of hate. I loved the way I felt afterwards but hated the way I felt during. I devoted myself to training for this one race, but beyond that, I was not going to adopt it as my form of exercise. Running was one of those things I hated talking about because I felt like a poser. Sort of like when people put North Face/Chaco/Patagonia/I Heart Mountains stickers all over their cars (don't look at my car) or buy something from Rei and call themselves outdoorsy, I didn't feel like I could sign up for a 5k and call myself a runner. It wasn't until about 2 years ago that I would ever even think of myself remotely as a runner, and I think the only reason I do now is because it's not this intimidating, completely defeating thing that it used to be. It's not something I beat myself up over anymore like I did when I didn't run as far or as fast as other girls. It sort of became a stress relieving habit, and then it became familiar, and now we're sort of just casual friends. That's not to say that Running and I don't always get along, but we always make up. Mostly for the following reasons.

I run...
...because I can.

...because I couldn't before.

...because the moments of clarity, ambition, and motivation I get post running keep me productive

...because of the sweat, especially when it runs down your face...the abandon you feel when you aren't concerned about smelling bad.

...because of the innate need to move and to see the world with my feet

...so that I can spend time with my dog.

...in defiance against disease, illness, laziness, pain, inability, insecurity

...because it's hard
...because I can feel my heart and lungs and blood vessels and endorphins smiling
...because I can go to bed exhausted afterwards
...because I can do it anywhere in the world and in almost any weather...in the rain, in the snow, in Hurricane Sandys, on the beach, in Europe, in South Africa, and in those new experiences, I make memories.
...because it gives me a sense of direction when I'm in a new city
...it accepts me as I am even when I don't
...because with it, I engage all of my senses and experience real human feelings like: delight, satisfaction, "I don't think I can do this", relief, exhaustion, frustration, etc.

tell me about your exercise...

spring chicken

After awhile I just have to go outside. Sometimes I feel like a chicken sitting on my eggs in my little coop, and I can't move or else the things under my supervision will explode. In other words, I wish I could spend 75% of my entire life outdoors. Funny, because about 85% of my life is spent indoors. I wish for spring 75% of the year, fading into a few weeks of fall and then a few weeks of winter. I wish for the immediate peace you feel when the sun smooths out the goosebumps on your arms. I wish to be a free range chicken, doing all of my duties in the comfort of a big yard. Spring makes me want to slip into a pair of shorts, go outside and garden (you know...in my concrete back yard), drink lemonade diluted with water, ride a horse as fast as I can (this isn't just a fantasy...I once had a horse and could do this), ride my bike for miles and miles and miles, get sweaty and gross, eat tomatoes right off a nearby vine like an apple, hike someplace a lot of people don't frequent on Saturdays, listen to embarrassing music very loud with my car windows down, drink iced coffee, spin around in circles in a meadow with "lucy in the sky with diamonds" playing in the background like in my own movie, and eventually go to bed exhausted with Philip and Mina snuggled very close by.

Happy April 11th, everyone.

just call me flake.

I don't like to call myself a flake. Nobody wants to be the girl nobody calls because she never comes. In fact I think I make an incredibly concerted effort to make it look like I am the least flakey person ever. Especially since I got an iPhone. iPhones are revolutionary in their ability to make someone uninteresting look cultured, multifaceted...sepia-ed. And with a blog title like "here and there", I feel it's necessary to accurately depict some heres and some theres. But when you aren't traveling and aren't having a good day and your hair is too greasy and you're tired and it's dreary outside, it's hard to muster up the will to want to do anything that would make a blog entry worth reading. Monday I had the opportunity to see Martin Scorsese speak at the Kennedy Center for free, and I didn't go. I had tickets. I even showered to go. But I didn't. Thankfully no friendships were on the line in light of my failure to show up, which is probably the biggest reason I didn't go. But lots of times an event arises that would require me leaving my apartment or little neighborhood to venture out and perhaps ENJOY myself, and I sometimes just sort of flake out. This is funny, because at the same time I absolutely love to travel and see new things and places and meet new people and try new food.

Honestly though, as dearly as my heart aches for travel, my heart also longs for solitude. We can keep contributing my flakiness to being boring, but I like to think of it as being introverted. The older I get, the more I realize how difficult it is for me to posture myself in such a way to be available at anyone's beck & call. The times I spend in solitude are times where I find my energy to go on. Henri Nouwen says things very appropriately, and one of his comments about solitude is poetry:

Somewhere we know that without a lonely place our lives are in danger. Somewhere we know that without silence words lose their meaning, that without listening speaking no longer heals, that without distance closeness cannot cure. Somewhere we know that without a lonely place our actions quickly become empty gestures.

I wonder if all the times as a kid that my mom would tell me "I think you might be just talking to fill the air" or my teachers would comment on my report card "Stephanie is a sweet student - she just needs to learn to talk to her neighbor less" would have been easily remedied by this Henri Nouwen quote. I feel like even as a 4-10 year old, I would have somewhat understood his words to make so much sense. Maybe not. 

The moments I have to myself are redemptive. It doesn't have to be at home on my living room couch. Some of my most enjoyable solitary moments have been traveling alone, hiking alone, running alone.

However, Philip just left for Knoxville for the weekend. I don't leave till Thursday night, so I'm not particularly needing alone time. I made chocolate chip banana scones. Come join me in devouring. I already had two. My door is always open...except when it's not. 

Here is my weekend in pictures. The cherry blossoms are just starting to open up their little buds. The cherry blossom kite festival was on the National Mall, so Mina and I ran down there (she got in the fountain at the Museum of the American Indian), and we met with Philip's school friends later. Sunday was Easter, and Philip and I had an amazing brunch with our upstairs neighbors, Kat and Erol. Have I ever mentioned that Kat is a gourmet chef? Any meal they invite us to is impossible to pass up. But hey. I made the fruit salad: