Last week, I celebrated my champagne birthday and officially entered the waning years of my roaring twenties. The day itself was rather unremarkable; I coaxed my parents and younger brother into joining me for a jaunt around the Baltimore Museum of Art, and we then enjoyed a late lunch of crab cakes at the adjacent Gertrude's Restaurant. That evening, my parents departed for an annual, reunion-style post-Christmas party, hosted by a dear close friend of my father from childhood, so my brother, Adam, and I passed the evening quietly, competing in a fierce game of rummy. He heated up plates of Cincinnati chili spaghetti for us, a delicious bit of nostalgia, the spicy-sweet, almost Indian-like seasoning harkening back to the birth city of our mother. I sipped a lemon drop, my wine-colored lipstick staining the rim, leftover from our afternoon out.
Three years ago, I created this little corner of digital self-indulgence, in a frenzy of fear and a type of anxious, unbridled excitement, quite the departure from my other, private project of cataloging my prose poems, a sort of literary sketch pad. Three years ago, just before the Christmas season, the partners of my former company laid off the entire staff, at the time around thirty or so of us, citing some fabricated financial fiasco. As we all entered the new year, contracted to work part time, as hourly employees, supplemented by state unemployment benefits, it was later revealed that the true root of the situation was a schism between the founding three leaders, two buying out one, amassing fees and jumping through legal loops to achieve this feat. A time of utter uncertainty, that beginning, later revealed itself to be one of growth and opportunity and learning; I would not be the woman I am today, without this trial and the adventures that unfolded after. Sticking around in the suburbs of New Jersey, even in the wake of being falsely fired and totally duped, did lead to cultivating some powerful relationships, partnering on some important professional projects, and traveling to an array of new cities that I would not otherwise have had the chance to see, at least not in such quick succession.
Still, with the wise and comprehensive view of retrospection, I cannot help but revel in how different, in certain major ways, my life is, from then to now. A still relatively new job, at a new company, in New York, working with a dedicated team and with senior leaders who adhere to professional and personal integrity. A loving, committed relationship, started in that time of tumult and unhappiness, the first relationship where I am respected and supported, unconditionally. A new home in a vibrant neighborhood, close to my beautiful family and my dearest of friends, where not a single day passes when I do not see, hear, smell, try, experience something new and unknown. Now, these changes do not mean that my now is always certain, always steady far from it. Mistakes, tears, anxieties, heartaches abound. But I have spent these three years growing.
While originally, this space began in the aftermath of shock, a bit of despair, it evolved to a space of irregular routine, the purpose rather simple: a space to write. To write unabashedly and, hopefully, to encourage and inspire those other avenues of language that, usually, intimidate. That I procrastinate or avoid. For this to be a space free from that intimidation, the subjects are for the most part superficial but not without relevance, style, fashion, aesthetics, bits of culture I find fascinating or amusing, occasional ramblings. Overall, with these objectives in mind, to write and to encourage further writing endeavors, I have met both success and failure. I am not one to create exhaustive laundry lists of resolutions, but nonetheless, with a pervasive sense of fresh start surrounding a new year, I cannot help but shake up my fortitude and seek to work harder in the coming months. Most likely to the relief of my dear filmmaker, this project has decidedly less tedious outfit posts accompanied by my desperately awkward modeling, but I still enjoy the haven it provides, a canvas for vehement verbosity on whatever I feel like.
Cheers. To another year.
Snowy Friday afternoon soundtrack: Jon Hopkins Immunity
(image taken from Rare Vintage)
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