Everyone Must Belong Somewhere

Every time I'm on an airplane I listen to Bright Eyes. Every time I listen to Bright Eyes I think a lot about where my life is and how far I am from where I want to be.

I don't know where I want to live when Jake is done with his MBA and we are ready to buy a house. I don't know if living in New York City is worth it if you don't have a car to explore all the beautiful places in the northeast. I don't know if it's worth it to live in a boring rural area if you can only take 2 trips a year.

Sometimes I think about all of this and I feel like I need to have it all figured out right now. It doesn't matter that I haven't even started my master's degree, or that Jake is still a year out from even applying to his MBA program. It just feels like I need to know where we are going to settle down.

But then I remember that I did move out of Utah. I did live in New York City over the summer, and even though it wasn't everything I thought it would be, it helped me learn what I want. I know I want a cute little house with a backyard for our Bernese Mountain Dog. I know I want a car so I can explore ever inch of my surroundings. I know I want to live next to a city so I can stay entertained. I know I want a lot of options for weekend trips and I want the to be affordable.

When I remember all of this I remember that I can get this in the northeast. I remember that I have already decided I want to live here forever. And even though that isn't a specific city or state, it's a specific area of the United States.

And it's one step closer to being settled than I was before.

XOXO

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E

Life Outside Of Utah

Hi! 

Sorry if I've already posted this photo. I have this weird thing where I can't post just text and be ok with myself. #problems

I just wanted to jot down a few thoughts about my life outside of Utah so far, for the future me to look back on and reminisc. The feeling I have right now is a good feeling, and I don't ever want to forget it.

I moved to Utah when I was 2 and didn't move out until earlier this year. When I was 16 I started to get this itch to move. It's weird to think of how angsty and depressed I was for all those years, just imagining my life outside of Utah and feeling like it was so far away. And now here I am, all moved out and my thoughts are pretty much what I thought they would be.

It's been weird but good. When we first moved I was panicking about dumb stuff like safety and natural disasters. And I would talk to Jake like maybe we would move back to Utah. But now that we have been in our New England home for a month or so, I'm feeling a lot more settled.

Utah will always be an important part of my life, but I think it will always be my past. I just can't see myself living there again. I can't pinpoint exactly what it is. The best way I can think to describe it is I just feel like I am free to be myself here. No one and nothing in Utah ever told me I couldn't be myself, but I don't know. It just always felt like I couldn't.

It's weird too, because there are all these little things about Utah that I feel like I did realize were Utah-specific. Like, it's SO safe there. So so so safe. Also there aren't any natural disasters other than that crazy huge earthquake that is supposed to kill everyone. Everything is centered around the freeway pretty much. People are really nice and neighborly. Also it's really clean and new. Like all the trees are so baby because they were literally just planted within like the last ten years haha.

It's just a good place to live! Not for me, but for a lot of people. And now I feel like I can finally understand that.

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Now here I am, living in New England and finally obsessed with where I live. Don't get me wrong, I liked New York for a minute, but here we can afford to live in a luxury building. I'm finally going to the gym. I have my closet room back. We have a door on our bedroom and it's just good.

And we're traveling to all these places just over the weekend and it's so cool to me that everything here is so close. I mean I drove to Boston and back in a day?! Like what is this life I have where I can just wake up, go to Boston, and be home again before 10? And I can take a train into New York City for like an hour and a half? I don't know. It just feels like the world is at my fingertips at last.

I'm just really happy with where we are at. It feels so good to be making our own way and really sealin' the deal as a family unit. Even if we aren't here forever, I am so glad we are here for now. It feels like the perfect place for us to be.

XOXO

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E

How I'm Liking New York City: The Truth

Whenever people ask me how I'm liking living in New York City, the only thing that comes to my mind is: it's a rollercoaster. There are some things that I am scared of and hate, and there are some things that I love and couldn't live without. It's constantly up and down. 

My life in Utah was comparable to riding a Merry-Go-Round. It was nice and safe, never full of too much excitement. While living in Utah, I became really anxious and depressed and latched on to this idea that what I wanted most was to move to New York City. However, now that I am here I realize I don't necessarily need to live in New York City to be happy. I just know that Utah isn't a good fit with my personality and lifestyle. At one point in your life (yes, I mean you), you have stood somewhere and said the words, "I like this, but I could never live here." That's how I feel about Utah, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. 

The more I explore different cities and towns, the more I realize there are a variety of places I could be happy and make a home. I mean, sure, I could be happy in New York City. But, I could also be happy in Hoboken, with all the cute streets and shops. Or Spokane, with the beautiful evergreen trees and granola lifestyle. Or even California, with all of the camping and beaches. 

I think ultimately what's important to me is being somewhere that I can make my own. Somewhere that no one has been before, where I can start my own traditions and my own lifestyle. I want to live a life without any maps or tour guides and figure things out for myself. It's definitely outside my comfort zone, but I feel like there is some sort of poetic beauty that occurs when you push yourself further than you thought you could. 

I don't know if we'll live in New York City forever. I don't even know if we'll live here while I go to graduate school. But, I do know that our time in New York City will be something we'll always treasure. We moved here as a couple of kids, but we will leave as real, grown-up adults. 

And that to me, makes it worth it.

XOXO

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E

P.S. All photos are from my day trip to Hoboken.

Like A Dog In A Cage

We are now coming into Cageville where the weather is approximately 1964 degrees with no chance of rain. We hope you enjoy your enternity here. We know you have a lot of choices when choosing an end, so we thank you for choosing Double Steel. Have a great day!

Woof, woof.

4 12 2013

I want to write about atheism and high school friendships, but it’s not the right time anymore and it never will be again.

People change and opinions change and cars change and then you realize that the thing that’s changed the most out of everything is you. You hear your own words repeated back to you and they are just as foreign as Don Quichotte à Dulcinée, and not nearly as beautiful.

Atheism comes back and you think about it being applicable to your life and it fits about as well as John Coffey walking the green mile, and it’s about the same message, too. Things happen when you play The Sims in 6th grade and when you walk down the hall in your freshman year of college and they are complete opposites, but they have something in common: divine intervention. And you know what, maybe me attributing things to a higher power makes me some sort of idiot child, but I’d prefer to live my life thinking that things have a purpose and I have a purpose than spending it running away and being scared. 

I mean, that’s just my opinion. You can have whatever one you’d like and our relationship will most likely stay the same. It’s just that I don’t want to hear what you think, because it’s not going to change my mind. It’s just going to change my opinion of you.

Be who you want to be, and I’ll do the same. 

There’s no reason to try to combine.

It’s just not possible.

XOXO

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E

3 26 2013

Well, apparently my past posts got deleted somehow, so instead I will leave you with some poetry I found from high school.

Grow your own heart.

Soak it in gold.

Lock it away. 

Do what you’re told.

Make your own soul. 

Inhale bright blue.

Savor the scene.

Forget what to do.

Raise your own eyes.

Spill out the pain.

Retry just once.

See what you gain.

Write down your words.

Let hands unwind.

Lose haunting fear.

Maybe they’ll mind.

XOXO

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E

2 15 2013

It’s getting easier for me to tell people I don’t love them.

I imagine flying through space to be something like driving through a snowstorm at 2:14 am.

I imagine 2:14 am to be something like heaven.

If I concentrate on the wall hard enough, I can almost remember a time when me and that one boy were friends. 

If the wall concentrates on me hard enough, it can almost become the floor.

Like, this is some sort of dream.

Only I’m not committing suicide this time.

Very pristine, this night is.

Eventually it will end, but that shouldn’t foretell the future now, should it?

You know what this is about.

Only garbage that my mind is coughing up.

Underneath it all, it’s quite different now.

Is that too obvious?

XOXO

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E

1 29 2013

Suddenly, I’m going 20 under and thinking about last winter. My tires don’t seem to mind, but my eyes do. They’re closing without my permission and continually casting shadows on the brightest parts of the road. It’s almost like reality is coming to end and dreams are taking over. There aren’t any poems to explain what this feels like this time. Only Orion’s belt and John Legend, and maybe that isn’t sufficient for a real human.

Sadness isn’t beautiful anymore and there is beauty in that.

xoxo

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e

1 30 2013

Obscurity doesn’t equal good writing and just because they order their drinks as a family doesn’t mean their happy. Stars are just an illusion, but that doesn’t make them any less illuminating. 

There’s nothing you don’t choose to be. 

xoxo

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e

1 7 2013

don't know the artist: inside the building on university and center, by the black sheep cafe

coleman galleries

january 2013 art stroll

muse music display by trevor christensen. check him out at trevorchristensen.com 

also at muse music. unknown artist. beautiful work though.

unknown artist

steven waggoner. check him out at stevenwaggoner.com

This one’s called “Things No One Tells You” and it’s dedicated to the piles of folded clothes sitting on the floor in the basement. They’re there because I’m moving for the fourth time in six months and starting to wonder what’s wrong with my brain. Mostly, I’m just scared for life, I guess. In high school it was fine and during the summer it was fine but now I can’t remember for the life of me why I chose a college that doesn’t offer my major, or why I signed a contract for a $420 apartment when my last day at Starbuck’s is on Sunday. These things aren’t making sense to me and it’s getting a little hard to breathe in here.

Mainly, because I don’t want to be a loser and I’m scared driving an hour for school is going to make me crazy and I will never be able to hang out with Jake and I’ll get fat from eating all the food at my mom’s house and I’ll fail my classes and I won’t be able to start my BSW until winter 2013 and that throws my whole plan off. Also, I’m scared life isn’t going to work out and I’m going to make more mistakes and maybe not even graduate and then I’ll be one of those girls who laughs at their past dreams like they were pretentious. 

I don’t feel pretentious and I don’t think a master’s degree is too much to ask.

Maybe it is though, and maybe my art is weird and I do need to go to more college activities, because maybe I am living my entire life wrong and I need to stop watching horror movies and spending my time dreaming about the future. Maybe I should start listening to Bruno Mars and going to EDP dance parties and wearing jeans. I mean, that’s all I’m hearing from most people lately anyways. “Emily you should...” but, I don’t want to do any of that. Ok, world? Can I just spend my time listening to Dashboard and organizing my room? I’ll miss all the sporting events and the majority of important school extracurricular activities, but Prayer of the Refugee is so much more appealing.

Probably I need to cry right now, but all the training hasn’t worn off, so I’ll just zone out while doing every day tasks and hope it ends soon. And life will turn out ok, because that’s what everyone always says and they wouldn’t say that if it weren’t true.

XOXO

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E

1 5 2013

Now I’m swallowing some Motrin and drinking out of a plastic Pepper Pals cup. Alliterations are happening accidentally and for some reason #14 is hurting, even though it shouldn’t be. Maybe it’s because it’s remembering 7th grade lunches or 9th grade lunches or 10th grade lunches. But, probably not, because honestly high school doesn’t matter at all. Not a lot of people know that. 

High school mattered for the gpa, but that’s pretty much it. High school friends stayed in high school and missed experiences still are not being regretted. Mainly I just miss the teachers, because let’s be honest here: they’re the only ones who made a difference in our lives.

High school was good for the friends, but now they are doing drugs or having sex with multiple people they don’t know or not talking to me or out of state. Life long? Life less? I’m not really sure. I think it was good, though. Meeting all of them. But, they didn’t affect me. Not like people now are affecting me. Not like JC affects me. Or my mother. Or that girl on my Instagram.

Maybe I’ve just now opened my “Grow Your Own Heart Kit” or maybe I’ve just now opened my eyes, but either way I’m getting further now. I’m building bookcases and calling in sick and gaining some weight. I’m taking baths and cleaning my life in every way. That’s progress, right? That’s better than junior prom and friday night football games, right? 

It is, though. So, mainly I just want the world to know that I know what it’s doing now.

And I couldn’t be more excited.

XOXO

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E