A New Lease On My Life

I told myself last August, as I was signing the lease to my very first apartment solo,

I'll give myself one more year in this tiny town, and if I don't have anything keeping me here - I'm moving.


That "anything keeping me here" was, in my head, obviously A Boyfriend. And I was busy blaming my personal stagnation on my tiny little town. Where I would be moving - that was undetermined, but I figured without a boyfriend & stuck in a rut, I could go anywhere.
In the first months of being single, as I flailed and failed and for a short time, fell right back into the arms of my ex boyfriend, I kept telling myself that I just needed to get out of this town, or find someone who loves me or maybe even move home. I was lonely and immature.
But then, just as I was reconciling with my ex, something wonderful happened:  Real friends.
Not friends to simply comiserate with, or drink with. Actual friends that I missed while I sat on the couch watching TV shows I hated with my For-A-Second-Not-Ex . Friends that I had 'Girls Night' with on Wednesdays. Friends that called in the morning to say have a good day. I actually found myself asking myself why they were texting me "Hi honey! Have a great day!" until I realized, Aah, yes that's what friends do. Trying to explain to my For-A-Second-Not-Ex that I wanted - needed! - time for Me and time with my friends was like speaking to him in French. (He does not speak French, and fears anyone who does not speak English. Oh Gahd.) He couldn't understand and he was jealous. When I finally split with him the second time around two days before Valentine's Day  - I am such an asshole, I know - I did not flail and fail and fall; I texted my friends at 7 in the morning and by noon four of us were having an oceanside brunch, complete with the champagne so damn cheap they don't put it on the menu - my Breakup Brunch.
A couple weeks ago, I grabbed a bloody mary with "Hi Honey! Have a great day!" and her Honey. We were all chatting about our friendships and how we had met over extra olives and a little vodka, when Honey's Honey exclaimed,

Oh my god, you guys are Sex & the City!

 If you know me, you know this is my least favorite, and perhaps now my favorite - albeit totaly cliche - analogies of friendship. I mean, everyone thinks they're "Carrie", yet no one thinks they're "Miranda". When I was playing house with my French-fearing boyfriend of five years, I resented the SATC analogy. But now, what this pop culture reference really means about my life fills me with pride.



I am not an island.
But I may get on for my studio since I'll be staying awhile.

A few weeks ago, Honey and Goldi and I were all out grabbing drinks, and my one year commitment to myself and the idea of Goldi and I moving a couple beach towns North came up in the conversation. Honey's face dropped, and she practically shouted,

What!? What do you mean "have nothing keeping you here?' What about me!? How could you leave me?!

*This is the same girl who gave me the "buck the hell up and get over it!" speech in the bathroom of a bar on Friday. (Which I desperately needed in that moment.)

Hearing her say that, and seeing her face, I thought, I have been such an idiot.
I realized that it is not a boyfriend that will determine my moves in August. That the "something keeping me here" has become, luckily, My Friends. They are what will keep me here. I need them and they need me.
And it was not my town, but me, that was keeping me stagnant. It was my actions within that town that were hurting my personal growth: I had to make the decision to, as my mother put it, "act my age" within town. And part of that has been surrounding myself with friends that I am honest with, that I allow in enough for them to know when to tell me to "get over it, stop whining and put on some Lipstick dammnit." That I can have the whole I'm-Not-Our-Samantha-Just-Because-I'm-The-Oldest arguement with. That tell me point blank when I am being selfish - that it isn't always about me.
I have had to learn to stop being too stubborn to listen when they give me advice - to stop being too stubborn to let friends know when I need advice. (Actually, part of this whole self-realization process was kick started by a very [very!] stearn talking-to over the phone from  France. I got called on my shit. & I listened.) In my early twenties, I stopped sharing - to the point where my own sisters would tell me they wished they knew me better. But I have finally realized that as much as I tried to be an island, how much I closed friends & family off, they were still listening.
When I told my best friend in San Francisco about how the (near-senior) host of this year's New Years Eve party tried to kiss me, and she - without skipping a beat - asked,

Well, did you kiss him back?

When I told Goldi last Saturday that I had forgotten to put on a bra, she responded with,

Well, you always forget to put on a bra when you're hungover.

When I really didn't want to go somewhere that I really needed to go, she told me, very kindly,

You know, it isn't always about you. You need to go. Be a good friend.

I went, and I thanked her later.

My reality is: I've never had so many friends who know me so well. In both the silliest of ways and the most intimate. Not long ago, an aquaintance pointed out, while we were on the subject of dating, that to a secure man, if a woman had no friends, that was a 'red flag'. It hadn't ever occured to me, but she was right.

So, come August - I don't have to worry about not having anything keeping me here - because I have My Friends. I love them and I love it here. And that's all I really need. I love it here because I am wandering around this tiny town arms-locked with some it's finest residents. So, I will be resigning my lease come August - though this time it'll be month-to-month...

So, I'm staying put for now. Geographically speaking, at least.

Caveat: Some of my Best Friends don't live in my tiny town, and without them I would be nothing. I will visit them more.