One Month Unemployed

Dear EN502,

I don’t have a bed in my room. My parents helped me get rid of it while I was in China in preparation to upgrade to a new, full-size bed; I’ve slept on the same narrow mattress and bedframe since I was ten (the memory foam was old and no longer held its shape – every year in college when I came home for winter break, I slept in an imprint of myself pressed permanently into the mattress). When I decided this summer that I’d spend my second gap year at home to work part-time and apply for grad school, I thought a good transition into living at home again would be to sleep comfortably, if nothing else.

I got back to the US in late August, and, while waiting for my new mattress and bedframe to arrive, moved into the guest bedroom downstairs. The end of August was hot and smokey – Idaho burned, and my hometown looked apocalyptic as a result. The mountains outside my window, usually so crisp in detail, looked hazy and indistinct like a poorly developed polaroid picture. A fine layer of ash coated everything outside. I spent most of my first week home staying out of the smoke, battling jetlag, and texting my friends in China, wishing I were back in Beijing (transitioning back into eating American foods, by the way, was tough).

When my new bedframe and mattress arrived, the boxes sat in the hallway outside my room for a week until my mom asked me when I was going to put it all together and, feeling like a petulant child, I told her to leave me alone, then I dragged the boxes into my room.

(Also, my room is a mess. Removing my old bed meant unearthing the boxes and keepsakes I kept underneath it and now they’re all out in the open, books and old clothes and artwork, waiting for me to sort through them in my Grand Plan With No Deadline to rearrange my room to look totally new.)

It’s now been a month since I’ve come home. I’m still sleeping in the guest bedroom; it’s dark and quiet, and I like it there. It makes me feel like I’m still transient, passing through on my way to unfamiliar horizons. No need to unpack, no need to settle in. Piecing together my new bed feels like sealing my fate – stuck in my hometown for the winter.

My fear of stagnation is fueled by associating my hometown with giving up continued personal growth, or at least putting it on hold. Does growth still happen if I’m not pushed out of my comfort zone or forced to figure things out alone, in a new city?

I moved three times in the past year after graduating college, and it felt like I took one emotional punch after another: hopeless, anxious, scared (although there were still fleeting moments of beauty and joy amidst it all). Without a consistent support system, conflicts felt impossible to solve, overwhelming to feel. It wasn’t until I came back to the familiarity and comfort of my hometown that I noticed my ability to handle stress and the unknown increased significantly. Events that sent me spiraling in Seattle are now resolved with half the effort. I don’t know how long this will last (because I’ve finally realized that nothing, good or bad, lasts forever). But I’m grateful to feel this way now, and glad to feel at peace.

I came out of unemployment last week and now have a part-time job in the local hockey shop. I’m coaching youth hockey, researching grad schools (don’t ask me what my plan is, I don’t have an answer yet), playing hockey, riding bikes (I finally bought a mountain bike after yearning and pining for one since high school and I am in love love love with it). I'm trying new things like playing bike polo (?!) and going to bars (a whole new world for me, to see the nightlife of my hometown). I’m making friends, which feels grounding – since most of my hometown friends have moved away, I’m happy to have found new people to love.

Above all, I missed Montana fall and winter. I missed the crisp, dry cold in mornings and the mild midafternoon sun. I was so blinded before by my teenage desperation to escape Montana that I look forward to a full year at home again as a different person than I once was.

I still don't have a bed in my room. But the other day I found myself sorting through my old keepsakes, organizing my closet and my shelves. There's no resolution yet, but I think I'm starting to settle in. 

Finally, per usual, here is the local weather report:

It is late afternoon, and the sky is a bright, infinite blue. There is a cacophony of birds singing in the big pine trees, darting from one branch to another. A lawnmower drones somewhere in the distance. Thousands of tiny insects drift through the air, winking in and out of rays of sun like dust motes. I caught one in my hand and found that its body was fluffy and fine like a cottonwood seed, like a fairy. The air is cool, yet the sun on my skin still holds the fiery traces of summer. The trees are deep green, blazing red, luminous yellow; there is not a single cloud in the sky.

With teeth and love,

Hanna

love of my life