Living is a Choice

I am back in the District.

I’ve resisted typing that sentence so greatly that this blog post has been tough for me to force into fruition.

I am back in the District and I am not sure how I feel about it.

I’m going to tell you how we got here, but I first want to share two stories:

1. When I made it back to D.C. and picked up the keys to my new place from a friend, I came by to check out the place that will, allegedly, be my home for the next two years. I signed the lease without viewing the unit in-person, so I brought Boston into a place neither of us had seen and neither of us knew how to feel about.
   
   I was in the unit for a while (apparently a long while) and then headed back to my friend’s house. She said, “You were over there for a while, but I figured you were just calling your sister and crying”.
   
   She was right. I had absolutely called my sister and had myself a good cry.

2. Two weeks after moving in, I went to a friend’s birthday party. It was my first time to see many of the people at the party in quite some time and there were plenty of questions about my road trip adventure. The birthday boy asked me how I was feeling about being back and I told him that I honestly wasn’t sure. He laughed and said, “Oh Holly, you will always want to be in the place that you aren’t.”
   
   I laughed back because the only alternative was to buckle under the truth of that statement.

I am grateful to be known by good people, and I am grateful that my community is willing to handle my idiosyncrasies with grace. The level of vulnerability associated with being seen in that way is jolting, but I find it comforting to be with people who are unrattled by who I am.

Ultimately, if I had my way, I would have kept driving. My best girl and I would have kept touring the country and I would have kept eating all the things and seeing all the sights and visiting all the old friends…but two things happened:

1. Boston got sick. I didn’t blog about it, and didn’t even really share about it, but Boston stopped eating consistently in Florida, we had an emergency vet visit in OKC, a follow-up visit in St. Louis, and another emergency vet visit in Lexington. She was diagnosed with Old Dog Vestibular Disease, had a crazy urinary infection, and then wound up with a gnarly digestive infection. (Sidebar: the low point of this whole adventure was, hands down, driving down the highway when soup-like diarrhea started erupting out of Boston. She cried, I cried, and it took days to get the smell out of my car.)
   
   While some of these issues may seem like one-offs, each vet uttered the same refrain: “She seems stressed.” We tried aromatherapy, we tried switching her food routine, we tried lots of pills, but at the end of the day, my best girl was just not doing her best…and after 14 years at my side, I owe her an environment that doesn’t cause her stress.
   
   
2. I found a place to rent. I lived in a house in a little neighborhood in Southwest D.C. seven years ago, and I fell in love with everything about it. I have spent years trying to find something in this same neighborhood and folks, I kid you not, the house literally next door to the one I used to live in opened up for rent. I am fortunate to have a friend, Kate, who not only saw the posting, but agreed to come view the unit for me the day following the find. The unit still had tenants in it so the pictures I got were a little hard to figure out but when I asked Kate if I should do it, she said “absolutely.”
   
   The house was also a steal because it has a spare room, which is now an office/guest room combo, and has more square footage than I’ve ever had. During the pandemic, I was confined to 756 square feet, and was adamant that any future apartment would have to have a separate workspace.

Given Boston’s state, and the magical thought of returning to this neighborhood, I couldn’t let someone else grab this little treehouse. This one is for me and my best girl.

I have so much I’d like to say about what 3.5 months on the road meant to me, and maybe I’ll post more in the future, but the thought that has been playing in my head for months, is that living is a choice. You see, the act of being alive is something that is granted to you by God, by fate, by science…but actually living? That’s a choice, a daily choice, that we have to make.

This road trip made me feel like I was choosing to live each day. I was intentional with my time, with my energy, with my finances…and rather than wake up and then go to bed feeling like the day had happened to me, I felt as though I was the commander of my destiny for every 24-hour period. I was the mastermind behind what my day brought to me.

Losing that feeling terrifies me…and as I sit here in this wonderful, but very undecorated apartment, I can feel the walls closing in, the monotony of it all stealing the peace it should offer me…and I just keep telling myself that living is a choice…

I also keep telling myself what my kid sister said when I panicked over signing a two-year lease: “Hol, leases can be broken.” Deep breaths, y’all. Deep breaths.

Road Trip Recap

So, after 103 days on the road, did I chase her down? Oh, there were definitely moments when I caught her…she was there when I would wake up scared and alone in a strange place, when I had to talk myself into trying something new, and when I felt the urge to drive down the highway with the sunroof open blasting Guns and Roses.

Thanks to her, I’m returning to the District a little stronger, a little grittier, and a little surer of what I want.

Buckle up, y’all.

Here are the final stats from my brave&crazy nomad adventure:

Days as a Nomad: 103 days/3.5 months

Mileage Driven: 6972 miles (I seriously thought about driving around the block a few times to round this out) 😊

Airbnbs Booked: 10

Friends Hugged: 26

Pounds Gained: 8 (I credit Louisiana, and I’ve got no regrets). 😊

Audio Books Completed: 5

Coffee Shops Visited: 27 (while I don’t have an exact count on how many lavender lattes that entailed, I feel confident saying it was as many as I could obtain)

Memories Made: Not enough and the perfect amount all at the same time…

I can’t thank you all enough for all your kind messages, texts, and ever-present support. You made my time on the road feel so special and I’m so grateful!

Boston and I are lucky, lucky girls.

Love,
Holly