So I'm adjusting, and rather well I'd say.  Later that week, the I-miss-playing-cards week, my house mate had a birthday and we sat in the warm kitchen and played cards...  Chelsea said I must have called out to the universe with this blog and it answered.  It was a nice evening.

Life is grand and all my own, it's funny that that statement appeals to me. 

I'm rather amazed that my mood seems intensely connected to the cloud cover, can this really be why I seemingly dip after days and days of extreme bliss? 

I'm gym shopping.  It's time.  And I am finally going to take an art class I have been talking and dreaming about for seriously years.  Chinese Brush.  I'm tickled.

Today I missed everyone in the world I ever loved.  Funny how all the missing of loved ones seems to toppled over me all at once.  I know how to get all the places I need to be in my new geographic area, but I still don't have people I can just drop in on, or any who might want to drop in on me.  I wonder if that season of my life is over for good.  I seriously hope not.

I'm hoping that you aren't wearisome of me extolling the virtues of my Christopher, but he has been the most amazing gift to me.  He loves me in human form the way our Kind God loves us.  He holds all of my tender places tenderly and runs with me cheering me on.  I'm so proud to be his.  He is the best man I have ever known.

To all of my not too near, dear...  I love and miss you.  I wish you could pop over and I'd make coffee and we could all play cards.

Love,  Kathryn

You know what I think I miss most today about my former life?  Game nights.  From my own college days to my eight years in Campus Ministry, game nights were par for the course.  There is a crowd, sometimes biggish sometimes smallish, but they are all faces you know, some you know well, others not so much.  But usually I knew more people than I didn't know and this made me feel magnanimous towards those who didn't know anybody and I would often take them under my wing. 

I used to have big wings.

For almost two years now, I have been the duck out of water, the lone person unconnected to the mass, (if I can even find a mass that I actually want to associate myself).  I have been fortunate though, there were a few people with some wing space for me and I'd adjust and assimilate.  But the circle was smaller, much smaller.

And now here I am.  I moved again. 

There is no group to assimilate to, at least not one I can find yet.  There are all of these disjointed people some of whom I live with, but I don't know if I can bare to form a family with these people.  I want a family already established who love God and are not crazy and will but their feet up on their furniture and expect me to do the same.

Where are my people?  Are they looking for me?  Do they know I want to come to the game night?  Me a disenfranchised-now 30-former-leader looking to belong and play a card game I can maybe beat you at.

I wonder why it feels like this is really hitting me.  What is it about now that makes me yearn for my old life?  I don't think I can go back.  I don't think I would given the change.  I really like just being Kathryn, no title, no support raising, no playing nice in churches I in all honesty wouldn't want to attend regularly.  I don't have to please anyone or keep my slightly more liberal viewpoints to myself in order to ensure my funding.  I am just living my life now.  I am cultivating my life with another, and he is wonderful.  I am free and I think I am a bit lonely.

I don't have any people to play cards with.

FYI:

It took me living in Berkeley less than 20 days to be offered pot from a real rasafarian, I of course have no idea how to correctly spell rastafarian. 

Man greeted me, (in stereotypical accent) "hey girl"... Then this kind benefactor to the masses in formed me that I looked sad.  Yeah, thanks for that.

Will Berkeley ever be home?  Will anything feel like home again?  I gave my whole heart to Eugene, I committed before I ever loved it, and the love came.

I never committed to Sacramento, will Berkeley win my heart?  Why do I long so to call a city home, my life has been so transient and I am tired.  I believed Eugene was it, then I owned to being wrong.

If home is where the heart is, my poor heart is confused.  Bozeman, Eugene, Christopher Hack.  Of course Christopher is not a city, but he has my heart. 

My inner longing for roots and connectedness feels like it is screaming again, every move in my life has been traumatic in it's own way and I was dead wrong to assume this one would be different.

My friend Mandy said it takes her at least one month to feel comfortable and settled just from changing residences in the same town, so surely I should not expect much better in only 20 days.

The problem is, only more time fixes this, only time creates familiarity and the sweet comfort of knowing where you are and where you need to be without having to consult google fourty seven times a day.  Only time heals the pain of living with strangers, only time can magically transform them into friends, or if I am lucky safe, trusted friends.  Can I really bare to do this all again? 

I can't bare not to to tell you the truth.

So I can check off kindly refuse pot from rasafarian from my list of how to acclimate to Berkeley, CA.

As always Kathryn fans, I will rally, I will love and damn it, I'm going let this city win me this time.

Here I am BERKELEY!  Open your arms and greet your newest wayward daughter.

Unseen; invisible, taking up space.

Taking up too much space.

Unseen; unsought treasure.

No ransom, no purchaser just pressure.

A past, the catalyst for the future,

She is altered.

She fights.

For wholeness;

For the right to see herself;

For the hope of someday

The hope of tomorrow,

Rest for her strained voice yelling loudly making little noise;

“see me”

“want me”

“call forth truth and worth and beauty.”

Too ashamed to ask directly she becomes pleasing,

Not recognizing the difference.

Unaware that pleasing is just another veil

She hides behind.

To my Christopher:

When you…

When you are happy my whole insides feel lit up.

When you are mischievous I confess, I can’t help but give way to delighted giggles.

When you are near and tender all I want is to give you everything,

And when you cry I must cry, I can not hold back the tears.

When you dance, I want to leap, it thrills me so.

When you sing, I am putty in your hands.

When you play, I grow determined to be your play mate always,

And when your heart grows weary, I want to find all my strength for you.

When you watch baseball my curiosity is wetted.

When you watch football I have many questions.

When you have the audacity to attempt to put on basketball, I reach my fill.

But when you open your heart to share, my interest is never satiated.

When it’s time for an adventure I’ll have my bags packed.

When the road is not as well lit as we’d like I’ll keep pointing towards Jesus.

When life presses furiously on you won’t be alone in the journey,

And when we reach the other side, we’ll get there together!

Love, ~Your Kathryn