Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

We have officially survived Day One. 

We of course didn't get out of Fairfax until about two hours later than planned. Given the nature of the trip (moving the entire life of two people across the country), I kinda figured that would be the case. Nerves were frayed from the lack of sleep the night before and the final bits of heavy lifting in the morning, and the beagles were not at all pleased with being packed up into a car. We successfully got on the road, though, and then everything was going really pretty well. Sailed around the Beltway without encountering anything that anybody from the DCMA would call traffic, got through Maryland, and then the first official kink in my plans showed up. 

"Daniel really wants to go to Mount Rushmore," Kate told me somewhere around stop number 2 or 3. Daniel is Kate's brother who took the train in from Portland to help with the trip westward. 

"Does he know that's in South Dakota?" I asked, because I remembered that she thought the Grand Canyon was on the way. 

"Yeah. He wants to go there." 

My freakout reflex immediately kicked in. South Dakota was not in the plan. North Dakota was in the plan. More importantly, visiting Jamie in Wisconsin was in the plan, and that was really the one stop on the trip that was actually important to me. In the midst of my freaking out, I didn't think we could possibly do both. My understanding of Midwestern highways is extremely limited, so when Daniel said something about taking 80 out of Chicago, I didn't remember that 80 runs with 90 there and we would essentially be following the exact same path. Just the idea of a change to the plan had me panicking a little. 

As it turned out, we could easily have done both. However, I got an email from Jamie while we were at the bar telling me that everything that could possibly gone wrong with her move to her new apartment had, and she wasn't going to be able to make it. So...it was a panic for nothing. 

A lot of my panics are for nothing, I think. I get all wound up about what I think is true, or what I think people are saying, and immediately begin to freak based on completely erroneous assumptions. It usually comes up because I find other people scary and assume that they hate me and everything I think or say or do. Once I get all upset about what I think is true, I find it really hard to calm back down when I realize what is actually true--I get locked in this terrible guilt/shame spiral over being wrong and possibly upsetting someone else, and then I just want to go hide in a closet somewhere. 

I have survived this latest episode of be wrong/have someone else be right/have things not go according to plan, however. We all got a decent night's sleep here in Perrysburg, Ohio, and now we're ready to truck on across the northern midwest. We're going to make this a longer driving day since we have no need to stop in Wisconsin Dells, and we are now Mount Rushmore bound. Huzzah! Look at me being flexible! Clearly the yoga is helping. 

My god, my god, why have you forsaken me?

I just booked my flight for the trip back.

I will leave Portland at 6:00 p.m.

I will arrive in Phoenix at 8:30 p.m.

I will depart Phoenix at 11:35 p.m.

I will arrive in Charlotte at 6:24 a.m.

I will depart Charlotte at 9:23 a.m.

I will arrive in at Dulles at 10:40 a.m.


This bitch had better know I love her.

Pack Light

"Well, at least you packed light!"

That is the phrase I hear every time someone sees my luggage for the first time. They are invariably being sarcastic.

I'm the sort of person who loathes being unprepared because I loathe being uncomfortable. I can handle outright pain, but being uncomfortable (whether physically or socially) is just the worst. I can embrace abject misery, take a sort of masochistic joy in it. "Yes," I tell myself, "everything about this is terrible. This blistering heat and that person unjustly yelling at me and the horrible stabbing of my broken ankle are awful. I will dine out on this story for years."

Discomfort gives me none of the satisfaction of having endured suffering or telling the elaborate tale of said suffering. No one leads off at a party with, "I have to tell you about the time my shoe rubbed a blister on my heel and I had to listen to country radio for a whole half hour." No one looks back at the time she was bitten by at least three separate mosquitoes while being underdressed for the company and thinks, "Ah, what a worthy foe I have overcome." There's no fun in discomfort like there can be in pain.

The best way to avoid discomfort while away from home is to be relentlessly, perfectly prepared. That requires a lot of things, and they do not all fit into one bag the size of a border collie. Emergency snacks of both the sweet and salty variety. Clothes and shoes for entering nice restaurants with one's head held high. Clothes and shoes for hiking over rough terrain, should adventure be called for. Tops for every kind of weather. Regular clothes. Extra underwear. Umbrella. Caffeine. The beloved flannel blanket I've slept with in some variation since I was a tiny little girl. Music player, phone, laptop, and associated chargers. Pajamas for too-cold or too-warm hotel rooms. Makeup for every day. Makeup in case I need to look cool. A detailed plan for every day (with spontaneity scheduled in). Directions. Maps. Reading material. Nail clippers. I may not need all of these things, but I might need some of them, and what if I decide not to pack them and then I do need them? I could end up uncomfortable, and I hate that.

My boyfriend, Zach, will leave town for a week with his friends carrying three t-shirts, three pairs of boxers, two pairs of socks, and no soap or toothbrush because, and I quote, "I'm not trying to have sex with any of them." He can be comfortable nearly anywhere. My father is like that, too - more dedicated to brushing his teeth than Zach is, but he can fall in with a group of people and never once worry about what they think of him. It seems to come from a kind of fearlessness, a general confidence that yes, what I am doing is right and proper and should some silly person decide to judge me for that it will affect me not at all.

I'm going to try to capture a little of that spirit on the adventure. Some things (snacks and my blanket, for instance) are non-negotiable. But I can take a little less makeup this time, and maybe the laptop can stay home. I can take just one jacket, and don't worry about if it matches the outfit or not. Trust that everything's going to work out. Pack light.

...but I'm still going to plan the shit out of it. My trust only goes so far.

The last bout

Today, Kate (AKA Snarky Brewster) and I are playing our last bout together.

Actually, she's bench-coaching. She wrecked her shoulder at a mixer three months ago and she's been off skates ever since.

Snarky and Mr. Brewster, kickin' it at the ED.

I remember when I first started with NOVA Roller Derby. I barely knew Snarky then - she was just the sister-in-law of my band's bass player. I'd been off skates for two years at that point, too busy and broke to keep up the habit while I was finishing graduate school. Though she could barely skate at all, she joined NRD before I did. She heard from Emily that I used to play derby, and so she convinced me to come out to a practice.

I was nervous. I hadn't skated in a couple years, and I didn't know that the league had only been together for a few months. For all I knew, they were all awesome and I was going to look like an idiot. As it turned out, I was fine.

The first practice I skated with NOVA was at an outdoor hockey rink that was only slightly less crappy than the one my league back home had skated on. As I started getting my wheels back under me, I did a few laps with Snarky. She promptly fell and, in a wild attempt to catch herself, grabbed my boobs. Both of them. At once.

Derby has always been a major part of our relationship. We talk about lineups, bicker about league policy issues, and gossip about derby people (and to whoever's reading this going "gossip is bad! it's toxic to leagues! you're a terrible derby girl!": don't even act like you don't do it, too. Tell me you don't gossip with at least one close friend, and I will call you a liar right to your face.) We talk strategy, bout makeup, sports bras, "to Spanx or not to Spanx," and go out to win the after party.

Derby will probably be where I miss Snarks the most. I have other friends there, other good friends, even, but as much as I love them, there's nobody quite like her. All the gossip will be going one way now, from me to her, and anybody she talks to me about will be somebody new who I don't know. She won't know this next Fresh Meat class; soon I won't be able to run lineups by her anymore, because she won't know the players. On the up side, however, since she won't be affected by league policy issues anymore, she pretty much has to respond to any of my complaints with "you're right, and all those other people are stupid."

Note to self: drinking at the after party tonight will only end in tears. Stick to water.

Instead of drowning my sorrows, I bury them in candy.

The past few days since Kate let me know she was leaving, I've been in a funk. It's not a terrible dark swamp of depression, but there is definitely that urge to just lie in bed and eat candy rather than actually doing anything.

It's not like she's dying, I remind myself. She'll still be around for phone calls and IMs and facebook and Skype. But it's not the same, and I know it, and I still feel a sense of loss.

I never had a proper Best Friend before I met Kate. Throughout school and even after, I always envied those girls with the matching necklaces and the shared giggles and the absolute knowledge of who their Maid of Honor was going to be when they got married. They had someone to call with any problem, someone they could always hang out with, someone to have fights and make up with, and oh baby did I want that.

The thing is, I'm not good at making friends. I'm socially awkward, but not in that cute, sweet way where people want to come up and talk to you because you're just so gosh-darn adorably quiet. My anxiety and nerves turn into a loud, opinionated performance, coupled with a wariness of initiating conversation with strangers and a difficulty making small talk that generally comes off as coldness and disinterest. Even once I know people, I have this lingering fear that any moment, the situation will turn on a dime and they won't like me anymore. There's that point, you know, where you're supposed to get closer to people or you decide to keep them just a casual friend. You've met, you've hung out in groups a few times, and if you're going to become real close friends with them, you have to spend some one-on-one time. Well, I never seem to succeed at making that jump.

Kate made that jump for me. I was 29 when I met her, and had already figured that I was going to die without ever having a Best Friend. That dream had died when the last really close friend married my ex-boyfriend and I wasn't invited to the wedding. But then came Kate, with her fearless approach to conversation and her outrageous outfits and her unsinkable belief that we were about to have The Most Fun. Suddenly I had this person who I could talk to about makeup, and feminism, and instructional technology, and roller derby, and RuPaul's Drag Race, and all the scandalous shit people we knew were up to. We went tubing and went to bars in the middle of the day and discussed how the importance of proper skin care really couldn't be overstated.

And somehow, we started talking about real things. Our relationships, our insecurities, our worries, our anger and our pain and all the other stuff that generally speaking I Just Don't Talk About. She became the person I called when I felt like my life was falling apart, and vice versa.

I know I can still call her, and I will. We'll still talk. We'll still be best friends. It's just that now when I've had a few too many at karaoke night and someone sings "Fire and Rain," I'm going to be crying alone instead of with her. No one else will ever be as excited to go to the Mellow Mushroom. No one else hates all the same people I do.

I'm going to miss her.