It was January of 2010 and I was sitting in beauty school when I decided that I didn't want to do it anymore. I felt like my heart was telling me to go.
Two months later I had sold all my clothes and was getting out of the car at the Minneapolis Airport to walk onto a plane headed to Seattle Washington. As I grabbed my one suitcase and said my goodbyes I walked through the sliding doors of the airport looking back at what I was leaving, and felt the most mixed emotions I have ever felt. I was unsure,afraid,sad,excited,and hopefully ready for the longest 3 weeks of my life.
I got on the plane and sat down looking out the window at the cold,dark Minneapolis I was leaving only to arrive at a cold wet Seattle. I got into the car and sat in the backseat looking out the window at what was to be my new home and felt nothing. This was my new life journey I was going to take to find myself and escape the state that had swallowed me up and held onto me for so long, I was determined to not turn back and to find happiness in another place.
The first couple of days I stayed at the house and got comfortable, laying low and getting used to a new environment, and then another couple of days went by and day after day nothing was happening and I needed to explore.I took a journey by myself on a bus with my ipod plugged in and a few bucks in my pocket, I walked through downtown Seattle trying to give myself reasons why I loved this place so much. I sat in a quite little Crepe Cafe and enjoyed a complimentary crepe from the owner and finished reading my book. It was lovely to be alone and know that no one knew who I was. It was what I wanted.
I made the trip back and it started to rain, I sat at the last bus stop before I would be back to the house. My phone started to jingle in my pocket with a call from the gentlemen I was staying with to tell me that they had left and there was a key for me in the shed. I think at that moment I knew I was kidding myself. It wasn't the fact that they weren't hanging out with me, but the fact that I truly was completely alone and that it really was only me here.
For the next couple of days I would take walks through the city and try to get lost, hoping that maybe somehow I could escape the reality of how lonesome I had become. It was an overwhelming feeling of wanting to be near people that cared about me and know me. I started to coat this feeling of sadness with nights and days of drinking, a beer or two in the morning and six or seven at night. I am not a big drinker at all but it started to make the days go by faster and the pain a little more numb.
I remember it was a Friday morning and the mail had just come, and the only people that got anything were their mom and me! I had two packages that arrived. I received letters of encouragement and support to candy and crafts. It was the one thing I needed at that very moment and time and it couldn't of been better. I started to receive text messages from new friends and old friends, and it gave me a feeling of joy like none other. I wanted to be remembered so bad, I know it hadn't been that long, but I started to feel like I was something of everyone's past when I decided to leave.
I made a decision that night that I was going to take the remaining bits of my money and make my way back to these people. I felt a feeling of unfinished relationships. I wanted to give my life back home another try and I didn't want to run away from things that were hard. I wanted to face everything I walked away from and I wanted to grow in myself where it all started.
When I got off that plane and walked through the same sliding doors I so recently went through, to see my mom running towards me with open arms was a feeling I will never forget. It's that feeling you get when your heart races so fast you think its going to stop, the feeling of complete happiness in a moment that you honestly believe everyone and everything stands still for that very moment, and its just you and the other person. I felt at home.
I think sometimes we have a feeling of overwhelming desire to walk away from what is familiar and sometimes uncomfortable, to a place where we can start from the very beginning. I think for myself personally I needed to see what it would feel like to have no one there for me, to have to depend on myself. In my mind I have always believed that I am someone who is detached from everyone and everything, that I can walk away and feel nothing. But I learned more about myself in three weeks then I could of ever expected. I learned to hold onto the relationships in your life, and recognize the people that care and love me, and to do the same back.
I am now 23 years old laying in my bed at 2:10am the day after christmas, living in an apartment only blocks away from my job with my lovely other half and I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.