have some chai when you read this.

never before, next to nothing, now-not-never, nuanced nesting, new.

 I am here I promise. Newly graduated, newly unemployed, newly moved, newly many other things. I have finally unpacked my life from boxes and bags and things are finally finding a place in my home. It was a strange, stressful task, physically packaging up my life so that I only had to worry about one thing at a time. Books in one bag, jewelry in another. summer clothes, winter clothes. and the things I had to throw away! It broke my heart to toss out shirts from high school and middle school, the letters i would never send and the books i couldn't get money for. No matter how hard I try to compartmentalize, things always get messy. My mom says that's because I'm too emotional; My dad says that's because my mercury is weak; My brother says that's because I got the inferior genes. Whatever the reason, there's always going to be clutter, no matter how regularly I make my bed or how carefully I fold my clothes. Because I'm just messy. And I'm not just talking about moving. 

I've been rediscovering this mantra my grandmother used to repeat to me when I was a little girl: Om Namah Shivaya. She used to lull me to sleep whispering it under her breath as she patted my back with the palm of her firm, papery hands. It appeared to me again after so many years in a book I read a few weeks ago, Eat, Pray, Love (which is far superior to any other chick lit I've come across). In the book, Elizabeth Gilbert translates the chant to: "I honor the divinity that resides within me," which isn't literally what it means, but is the essence of it. Literally, the words mean "I honor Shiva," the creator and destroyer of the universe; but in Hindu scripture, Shiva is also the name given to the one thing that remains intact even when everything else goes away...the self.

Is this too zen? Sorry. My point is this: I've been relearning how to feel, fear, love, and trust this whirling magnetism that I was born with-- that we're all born with. And an amazing thing is happening... I'm learning how to let go. This is no easy task for the girl who can't bear to let anyone else stir the brownie batter and refuses to let go of the remote control. This feeling isn't new, but it's rare and fleeting. I know it like I know a great pair of jeans or a good haircut or a beautiful conversation...I hope it stays for a little while. Paring my life down to some boxes proved to me how much I need and don't need. Because when all this goes away, I just have me.

But who I am is made up of all these people and lives and loves I'm experiencing now. Me is what happens in the middle. And I guess that's why I'm okay with letting go a little bit, not holding on so tight to what happens next...because tomorrow I won't be what I am today.