But that's only marginally related to this: Last weekend, I realized I'm not moving any time soon.
I know, I know, I already wrote about this, & by now you're like, "Kate, get over the freakin' Buckeye State, you're in DC now, just shut up & live it," & you're tempted to move along to the next bolded post in your Google Reader. And you're right. You're right!
But that doesn't mean it wasn't still kind of a shocker to travel home for a wedding (yes, another...) last weekend & be struck - like, really emo-to-the-max, blindsided struck - by the realization that I'll be in D.C. for at least two more years. I've lived the past three years thinking I was Midwest-bound sometime soon, any day now. But today, I'm preparing to start a new job (in 10 days!), which means I'll be in the District indefinitely, so this was the first trip home when I had to admit that I'm not going back anytime soon.
My high school pal Sean - who I used to refer to as Male-Me & probably still should because despite geographical challenges, we're wildly alike, though he is both wittier & angrier than I - sent me a text on Friday night that read, "Dude. Life happens. If you keep looking backward with a sense of longing like this, you won't really appreciate where you're at, homie." And yes, I appreciate the fact that it starts in surferspeak & ends in gangspeak; we Midwesterners keep our life advice really classy. But you know what? That life advice is really solid, too.
I appreciate D.C. & my life here, but perhaps I need to appreciate it even more. Someday, I want to be able to look back & say, "Yeah, I Tim Magraw'd/Kris Allen'd/Newsies'd that shiz & lived like I was dying/seized the day" instead of "Yeah, I was pretty mopey & I took a lot of naps." Because let's be real, no one ever ruminates on their past & thinks, "I sure did sit around & watch a lot of great episodes of 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' back in my youth. Those were the days!"
So it's on. District of Columbia, I'm recommitting myself to you. Whaddaya want to do together? You want to go to all the places I wrote about & then never went to? Try out some of the stuff in the "DC" section of my 101 in 1,001 list? Take more more funny surreptitious photos around town? Try not to find a dead body on the Metro? Do some other crazy stuff I haven't even thought of yet?
And hey, how 'bout this for dedication? Inspired by a pitch from the director of Jews United for Justice, I may even sacrifice my beloved Buckeye State citizenship to become a resident of the District - taxation without representation & all!
But I'm not giving up my new necklace.
