I found the cure to growing older…

…and you’re the only place that feels like home.

I’ve had this post saved in my “drafts” folder for months and months. I knew it was coming, knew I would have to write it, and I just never found the right moment. Now, I know there isn’t going to ever be a “right moment.” The clock face is the same no matter when you look at it, and from here, things are just going to get messier. So here I am.

Here it is: We moved back to Cincinnati from Chicago in early September.

There were a lot of reasons for this.

My old friends – my oldest friends – Fall Out Boy said it best:

I always weigh what I lost against what I left. So, progress report: I’m missing you to death.

I missed my home, I missed my family and friends, I missed being able to walk outside and immediately experience nature.

There were also some overarching issues that transcended me and any desire I may have had to stay in that city, but they only added to the clamor in the pit of my stomach: I was ready to come home.

Let me say it again. I was ready to come home. Chicago was what it needed to be for me, for the last year and a half: a home, a refuge, a place to begin my career, and the birthplace of my love for expensive coffee. (Seriously though, someone sedate me because I am hyped on caffeine and IDK how to kick this addiction.)

Despite that eagerness . . .

We’ve been home for four months now, going on five. I still don’t feel like I’ve settled. I think that’s a product of events beyond my control: the world at large, Husband’s job situation, my own job situation. Things are in flux. The world is in flux. My insides are turmoil more often than not.

There are, however, things that are within my control. I feel like 2016 passed me by and I just stood and watched it. Shitty things happened. I waited for things to get better. Shitty things continued to happen.

“When x happens I will finally be happy.” No. I need to take steps to actually be happy. It’s not something that just… happens.

I’ve made a promise to myself. This year isn’t going to be like that. I’m going to read, and write, and exercise, and knit, and buy a thousand bookshelves to line the walls of my home. I’m going to pay my bills on time. I’m going to run the sweeper. I’m going to scrub the tub and take a bath. I’m going to finally start submitting my damn novel, because it’s good, goddammit, and it deserves to see the light of day.

I’m going to be a person again.

So, here’s to new adventures. New months. In seven days, it will be the first day of my birth month, the first day of the self-imposed Submission Period by myself and my friend Beth.

I need to stop wishing that tomorrow will be better. Today is a tomorrow. I have to stop waiting for something good to happen to me. I need to create something good, something worthwhile. I need create myself again.

I’m going to sing the song of myself. Time to begin.