Exhale

I have been holding my breath for a few days now.

Kind of waiting to wake up from this weird state of surreal that seems to not be leaving anytime soon.

Let me just say a few things:

1.  I am, unfortunately, a valley girl. I am not proud of this, but manfriend has forced this concept down my throat; I do hate being cold, and enjoy a good latte. Shun me if you dare. With that said, metropolitan life suits me quite well. And although North Dakota is not the hub of all things modern in our fair country, Bismarck in particular does have a lot to offer by way of commerce and full scale suburban life.
2. I don't personally have anything against North Dakota, or Bismarck-proper. So if you are from here, or a place similar to here, I am not hatin'. In fact, I relish the opportunity to be separated from my familiar because it's good for the soul. What I do dislike, is being away from co-ops and hyper-local restaurants and JCrew. I will miss those things, and I am allowed to miss them, so just let me whine about it.
3. I am far away from home again. Not 'home' as in my "mother's bosom". Home as in, when I need a good wine-cry, I can walk across the hall or sweat it out at my favorite oh-so-familiar yoga studio or circumnavigate traffic with my eyes closed (Do not try driving with your eyes closed!). 

But keeping those three things in mind, the answer to the question of how I'm doing out here, is "fine". Not in the "I'm-actually-mad-at-you-so-you-need-to-keep-asking-until-I-tell-you-what's-up, fine." I mean the actual sense of the word in it's true form:

I'm downloading and processing a new place. I could have moved across the river to Minneapolis and I'd still be doing the same thing--only with more coffee and dinner date distractions in between. I like  love my apartment because SO MANY CLOSETS! (When you live in 50+ year old homes for 8 years, you do not take those for granted.) Moving itself is exhausting physically but I think it spends us mentally for all of the adjustments you have to make from your comfort zone.

But I'm starting to take hold of this new normal and embrace it for what it is- a real-life adventure. Not something out of the movies that's romanticized, but a daily story that will one day be a time period encapsulated as "The Bismarck Years".

The days are flying by, which seems weird to say but I haven't looked at the clock mid-supper before 8:30pm because there's a lot of stuff to get distracted with-- easy things like putting away more pans, and googling curtains or office chairs.

It's Wednesday, so it feels good to finally exhale. I'm not holding my breath for any surprises or some sort of elaborate Punk'd episode to unravel, but I'm here and this is my now.

On a related note, if anyone has any good butchers or places to buy good bacon, I'm desperately seeking a good thick-cut. #lowmaintenance #notsorry