10 Life Lessons This Cross-Country Move is Attempting to Teach Me

There are a few lessons life has attempted to teach me since my move — all things that I haven’t yet spiced up into a full essay, but deserve to be memorialized by my metaphorical pen nonetheless. 

So I present a collection of lessons I’ve learned — and am still learning — in the last 3 months:

1. Get a therapist. 

S/O to Dr. Christina for keeping me in check.

2. Say yes to invitations. 

Unless your gut says HALT! DO NOT SAY YES! In which case, listen to your gut.

(Speaking of…)

3. Listen to your gut. 

Y’all… what if we could actually trust ourselves?! (Scandalous, I know.) 

I wrote an entire essay on this one.

4. Get out of your head. 

And into your boots. I’m not sure there’s a sound any more sacred than sand crunching under hiking boots. There’s something about movement, about connecting with your body, that breaks the spell of those out-of-control, panicked worries, putting into context the reality of a situation. And usually, the reality is not as bleak as the imagination likes to paint it.

5. Confrontation is good. (no, really!) 

I hate confrontation as much as my scared poodle hates loud noises. I’d rather stew in my feelings than experience the crunchiness that comes along with stating my needs, asking for clarity, or otherwise addressing a tense situation.

But it turns out that when you approach confrontation as a means of relationship repair — and not a space for vindictive vitriol — it can be a healthy, life-giving practice. Who knew!!

6. Be the invitation. 

A friend recently shared with me her feelings of disconnect from her community. This disconnect told a tale in her mind that her presence wasn’t wanted, that she was a burden to others. Of course, this narrative is far from the truth, but our brains can be pretty persuasive and twerpy sometimes, weaving together stories that debase our self-worth. Admittedly, I’ve felt this way before, too. We all have, right?

But the more I do this whole “be alive” thing, the more I realize that if you crave connection, if you desire relationship, you need to be willing to be the invitation. You need to send the text, set the plan, create that space for friendship. Going first is vulnerable, but it turns out vulnerability is a requirement for real human connection. (Look, I don’t make the rules.)

7. Silence doesn’t always mean rejection. 

As someone who reads texts at inopportune times, and then COMPLETELY forgets to respond until approximately three fortnights later, my silence reflects my forgetfulness, not rejection. Others deserve this same benefit of the doubt from me.

8. Contrary to (my) popular belief, most things are not, in fact, the end of the world. 

One of my brain’s favorite past-times is to catastrophize all situations. Once, upon my descent into Tucson, when we were wheels-down ready to land, the plane abruptly changed course right over the runway. As we began to gain altitude again, it clearly meant that our landing gear was malfunctioning, and we were all going to die a fiery, jet-fuel covered death. THIS WAS THE END.

In actuality, another plane was too close for comfort on the runway, and air traffic control requested our pilot to abort the landing.

(Is that a bad example? Since technically we did avoid the catastrophe of almost crashing into another plane? Anyways.)

The sunshine is teaching me perspective, and I’m realizing that maybe, just maybe, the worries in my life aren’t really the end of the world. Maybe, just maybe, the adage “this too shall pass” is — gasp! — true.

9. Pity parties are okay in contained, cathartic doses. 

And I stand by that. Go hard with a cry sesh. If you’re feeling extra indulgent, put on a Bon Iver record. Hell, spin it TWICE. Make your list of grumpy-girl or grumpy-guy qualms. Go ahead, tell God what a BIG FAT BUMMER you think his plans are.

But you don’t get to stay there. Although your feelings are valid and point to deeper human longings, uncontained self-pity helps no one, you included. Good solutions to snap you out of said self-pity pit include buying a homeless guy dinner, tipping the barista extra bucks, sending a friend flowers, and driving the long way home listening to bops at the loudest volume that won’t irreparably damage your hearing.

10. MOST IMPORTANTLY: You should always keep Shazam on your phone. 

Allow me to set the scene: a coffee shop populated with vining plants and the best mocha in the Valley, a long list of to-dos, my laptop open and fingers poised to make copywriting magic happen. 

But then! 

A song comes on. A song from my past. A song that I listened to almost daily in the year of our Lord 2016. But I couldn’t remember the song name or artist. And I could not let it go. So I spent four (4) hours tracking that song down. I got absolutely nothing done.

So if you take away anything from this list, it’s this: always, always keep Shazam on your phone.

(And in case you’re wondering, the mystery song was “Bayonne” by Little Comets.)

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