You know how sometimes, a long-forgotten memory will make its way to the surface for no apparent reason?  All of a sudden, the scene is playing in your mind – like a film projector on an old bed sheet, nostalgic home video remembrances of life before you knew the things you know now.

The other day, that was happening for me.  I was seeing our Dalmatian, Princess, and games on what must have been the original Apple computer, and Otter Pops from the freezer in the garage, and the orange tree in our old backyard, and trips to the Dairy Queen on our bikes, and summer nights in the backyard, and getting beaten up by the deaf girl in 1st grade…

WAIT A SECOND.

It totally threw a wrench in my gears, a hitch in my giddy-up.  I was beaten up?  In 1st grade?  By the deaf girl?

(Let it be known that these days, I would absolutely, 100% use the term “hearing impaired.”  But remember, I am being transported back to 1989, when I didn’t know anything about being politically correct.  I also didn’t know that you shouldn’t swallow toothpaste – but I digress.)

The last time I checked, I do not have multiple personalities… yet… and so I’m not quite sure how this memory got repressed for all these years only to surface two decades later.  But just like that, in the middle of my work-day, I was transported back to recess in 1st grade, on the playground at Oster Elementary, scared every single day that the deaf girl from 2nd grade was going to beat me up again.

She had pigtails.  She had hearing aids.  And she had it out for me.

I never got up the nerve to tell anyone.  I just went on being afraid every day.  And I don’t know that I’ve ever been so relieved as the day when a playground aid caught the little shrew in the act, and made sure she never touched me again.

Hey, if I was forced to re-live this story, then you can be sure that I would subject you to it, too.  What else is a blog audience for?

And two more nubbins:
-    I fly to Seattle tonight.
-    My East Nasty of the Week column will be resurrected next week.

There have been a lot of times in the past several years when I have needed courage.  Between the ending of relationships, and a solo cross-country move, and feeling so alone I could barely breathe, and being relatively destitute, and getting roommates, and starting to share my music for the first time, and introducing myself to hundreds of new people, and continually putting myself out there… I have been through a lot of big, dramatic, grandiose transition.  Change is scary.

But for me, change is not the scariest thing.

In recent months, a lot of things have fallen into place for me.  I’m on stable ground.  I have a home, and a Tennessee family, and a great job, and a feeling of belonging.  I know my way around the city, and I’m involved in my church and various other groups, and I feel very much a part of the fabric of my Nashville community.  Things are steady.

Then why is my first instinct to run?

I’m finding that staying put requires a lot more courage than leaving.

My friend Matt is in his second year at Princeton Theological Seminary in New Jersey, and the other day, he emailed me saying, “I miss Seattle more and more. Yet, sadly, it’s becoming more of a memory than an old reality.” What an unfortunate truth – and one that has been sneaking into my own way of thinking in recent days. Seattle will always, always be home. But all of a sudden, it feels further away. I hear about the things that my friends are doing, and the new people that they have met, and I see pictures of them having fun in my favorite places, and it all just feels so… far.

I know that my friends will always be my friends. But space changes things. Distance changes things. Time pulls certain people and circumstances away, away, away, like taffy – and the longer we try to hold on, the more stretched we become.

But when we learn to let go – when we choose to let go – we find other hands to hold. They are not replacements. They are not the same. But they are wonderful and beautiful in their own unique ways – ways that no one else could be – and they are walking a parallel path to mine in this new chapter. I have found some of these people, and I am so grateful. And as my friend Emily mused about her own life in a recent email, “I don’t want to miss this good season because of selfishness or envy.” Me neither.

My friend Joel wrote to me, “I think that if you take steps, at every opportunity, towards your dreams, you generally find that somewhere along the way, you’re actually living the dream.” All of the little steps that I have taken since leaving Seattle have led me to where I am now – 10 months into a new life in Nashville, new relationships, a new perspective. I am not the same girl that I was when I arrived – this time has changed me. I have seen sides of myself that I never knew existed – and some that I would never care to see again. I have doubted and despaired, and I have lived and laughed. Many, many times, I have cried – and I know that I will cry again.

But today – beautiful today – the tears are nowhere to be seen. And today, I feel like I am living the dream. So take it from me. If you are thinking of making a life change or taking the plunge or chasing a dream, do it. It’s never easy. But it’s always worth it.

And my new friends are making this whole thing so much more fun.

In general, I am not a forgetful person. I remember important dates, items on my grocery list, and words both tender and toxic. It’s a rare occurrence for me to miss an appointment due to negligence. I can hear a song one time, and be able to sing back the chorus word-for-word. I don’t need a recipe for chocolate chip cookies. No, when it comes to the important things, I do not easily forget.

Which makes it very odd that I left my keys IN MY FRONT DOORKNOB overnight. I slept soundly, thinking that I was safely locked inside my apartment, when I truly could have been murdered, had my house ransacked, and my car stolen. I suppose they would have been justified, though, because have you seen my hot ride?

Nightmarish scenarios aside, there’s another realm in which I can be forgetful. When it comes to the past, I tend to be a revisionist. I look back at certain times in my life with great nostalgia, under the illusion that everything was perfect when it wasn’t. I forget the hard times – I forget the reality. I convince myself that my life in Seattle was flawless, when in all actuality, I know that I struggled with the same things that I struggle with now: insecurity, loneliness, lack of purpose, lack of discipline. Instead, I remember the friendships. I remember feeling needed. I remember feeling seen. I remember the cozy weather. I remember medical insurance. I remember the water and the mountains and the drive-up coffee stands. And as shallow as it is, I remember my hair being long.

Ah, yes, times were good.

It’s easy to forget the bad, in the same way that it’s easy to forget that your ex-boyfriend wore sweatpants with elastic around the ankles.

I want to remember my past for what it was – being both grateful for the gifts, and mindful of the pain. But more than that, I want to accept the present – with everything that it brings, good and bad, ugly and awesome. I want to be here now. I want to live.

Which will probably require never forgetting my keys in the door again.

Plastic bags
I have a confession: I’ve forgotten my canvas bag TWICE. Both times, I slunk out of Harris Teeter (oh yeah, did I tell you that the grocery here is called Harris Teeter? Ironically, it was the site of this smudge on my dignity), stealthily surveying the parking lot for any blog readers who might catch me with the plastic bag contraband in my hands. Once safe in my car, I leaned my head against the steering wheel, counted my lucky stars, and then prayed that God would heal the earth of global warming.

Otherwise, it’s steady on with my mission to save the planet.

The weather
Oh my word. I am in heaven. I am Miss Congeniality. I am Maria Von Trapp. I am a Disney princess whose hair is braided every morning by cartoon birds. October has always been my favorite month, and I am happy to report that there is no geographic chauvinism involved when it comes to autumn: October comes through in Nashville just as it comes through in Seattle. Praise be.

Dan Evans
What can I say? The man is totally redeeming his name!

After contacting him via MySpace with a quick note saying, “Hey, I’m the girl whose TINY car was clobbered by your GIGANTIC bus,” I received the sweetest, most apologetic message in response. He graciously offered to cover any damage, and even had some very kind words about my songs. I wrote him back saying, “It ain’t no thang,” asked for a free CD, and said that when he’s back in Nashville we’ll go for a beer.

And so, in about two weeks, we will be real-life friends.

Thus ends any Dan Evans smack-talk. I won’t have it. He’s won me over!

This weekend
This afternoon, I am rushing off to fly to Kansas City for the weekend. I have 3 Southwest drink tickets, and will be sharing with two friends of mine who are booked on the same flight. I will probably not have the chance to blog tomorrow, since the three of us will be otherwise occupied doing something that is currently non-bloggable. But should a day come when it IS bloggable: oh sweet mercy, it’s going to be good.

But maybe… just maybe… tune in over the weekend. I’m hanging out with my nephews, which typically instigates some sort of hilarity.

Yesterday, I spent upwards of 5 hours shredding documents at my work. I filled 6 Hefty bags full of confetti, and succeeded without getting a single paper cut. I only jammed the shredder once, and wound up completely sweaty from the heat of the hulking machine. At financial companies, they don’t mess around with their shredders – they invest in high-powered, serious beasts.

And so, feeling incredibly satisfied from my completion of the monumental shredding task, I was reminded that I had a stack of papers at home that I have been meaning to shred. I brought them in today, ready to feed them to the grating teeth of the destroyer. Some old bank statements, credit card applications, and…

Some letters. Letters from ex-boyfriends.

I’ve had this stack of letters for a while. While dating each of these guys, I saved cards and notes, and printed out certain emails, positive that these words were going to be important memories to share with our hypothetical-someday-grandchildren.

I don’t know a girl who doesn’t, on some level, think this way.

When I moved out of my apartment in Seattle last summer, I purged myself of so many unnecessary things. But for some reason, I bundled up these letters. I couldn’t get rid of them. They reminded me of the existence of love – and that maybe it could happen for me again.

Recently, I started feeling like maybe these letters – filled with once-meaningful, but what I now see as cheap words and empty promises – were weighing me down. Why was I holding on to them?

I mean, really: these are the same guys that propelled me to write a song that ends, “I don’t have much heart left to break.” Why keep any – any – remembrance of them? Good riddance, right?

So I brought them to work today. To shred the hell out of them.

But before I did, I took one last read-through.

And call me crazy, but I cannot destroy these letters.

Some of the kindest words ever bestowed on me are in these letters. I had to re-read certain paragraphs, baffled by the pure goodness and generosity and love that had, at one point, been poured out onto me. I had forgotten how these words felt. These words bring life. And though I am not expecting a resurrection of romance with any of these guys, these letters make my heart believe in the connection between two humans. They remind me that I actually do have a lot of heart left to break.

And that’s a good thing.

Maybe someday, I will shred, burn, bury these letters. But not today. I can’t do it today.