NSFW: The Chronicles of a (Free?) Girl, Chapter 7

Is fall finally here?

"Let's just tell everyone he was born underground and raised by moles."

I was away for a few weeks and now I’m back. Why? I don’t know. I started a new job and needed a second to decompress, even though running this blog series has been therapeutic. During my brief hiatus, I had a lot on my mind: Am I unwell? Did I die and this is the afterlife? Was I a soldier on the battlefield all that time?

The dancing dinosaur at Petco

Katy Perry’s “Firework” ignited Union Square yesterday. It was bursting from the top floor of Petco, where I looked up and saw a spirited dancer in an inflatable dinosaur costume irrepressibly grooving. I even took a video, something I rarely do unless flowers, trees, or pigeons are involved.

A rushed walk to Fleet Feet for a running shoe try-on became a random phenomenon reminding me why I love New York City. I’m trying to incorporate intuitive, spontaneous fun like this into my everyday life again. 

Into the unknown

I’m working on my balcony and it’s 75 degrees. My boyfriend is here too, and he’s sick. I thought I was getting sick last night but I guess I slept it off. Speaking of last night, we watched Frozen 2. He preferred the story and well-developed characters of Frozen 1 more, while I love the story of Frozen 2 (and the visuals!) but feel the story is too ambitious for the movie’s length. The conflict is resolved in around 10 minutes! I want more lore, more tension.

Or maybe I wish Elsa’s solo journey through an enchanted forest didn’t have to end, because I, too, desire an icy adventure.

During my period of underemployment, I spent months in my head and not in my body.

I dream of being on a cold, gray Cape Cod beach where I scream at waves crashing on rocks, or a snowy mountain in Montana where my cheeks are flushed and my boundaries are pushed. Something primal, something painfully cathartic—a natural birth marking The Afterlife. More on that below.

My cup runneth over

I can’t shake this feeling that I died. Not actually, but in a sense that everything around me is godly and artificially sunlit. It freaks me out. I’m confined by perfection, sentenced to exist in the endlessness of the divine now. And what does that even mean?

This is the best way I can describe it: I’m in the French countryside and everyone’s offering me popsicles and plush blankets and handshakes and a weekend stay at their vacation home. The sun never sets. The weather stays in the 70s and there’s no rain.

In this reality I crave a newness that a haircut can’t satisfy. Yet, I really should rest after all that stress. My body fought for months, but now there’s just peace.

Chaos brought boundless inspiration fueled by hunger pangs. Perhaps I don’t know how to be full right now. The old me died and this reborn me is finding her footing in a world lacking movement.