Yesterday I joined up with my great friend, the now Dr. Kristin Webster, to drive from the right to left coast of our dear country.

Driving cross country was never on my life’s To Do list. Unlike many of my friends, I never really wanted to do it, that and run a marathon. I think I looked at driving cross country and running a marathon as similarly painful tests of endurance. But day One of my trip turned out to be really fun.

Some highlights:
1. So far everything still looks pretty similar to the East Coast, but it feels great to be in new place where I am not haunted by old memories and instead get to create brand new ones.

2. Good conversation with a great friend who has such a smart, inquiring mind. Not to mention resourcful–give this girl an iPhone in Ohio and you end up with a super cheap 4 star hotel room by Chicago.

3. The adventure of taking it as it comes. When we started out yesterday we sort of expected to set up camp (literally a tent) somewhere around Cleveland, but the next thing we know we are trucking through to spend a girls night out in the Windy City. Okay, so by the time we got there we were a little too tired to do much more than get a greasy famous sandwich and a beer, but the excitement of making the last minute change of plan was better than needing to follow through.

4. Getting a speeding ticket from the most polite Highway Patrolman in the Buckeye State. It was like he was a customer service representative selling me a new insurance policy, checking that I did not have any questions or anything else that he could help me with. Well, Officer Ramsey a cheaper ticket would have been a help, but I feel like the entertainment value was worth the price of admission.

Today we head into the Great Plains, and hope to take advantage of as many McDonalds promotional free Mocha Mondays as we can.

After 29 years of not having this experience, in the past four months I have been pooped on by a bird twice!  Today being the second time.  What I love about myself is that, both times my reaction was to laugh out loud.  I like that in certain circumstances I don’t take myself too seriously, and that it is not just an image that I am trying to project (cause I know I do that–one of the ways I do take myself too seriously). But I do have these impulsive and instinctual moments of laughing at myself when others would cringe or cry or vomit. Like you, right now, are probably much more disgusted with me than I am with myself.

They say 40 is the new 30. Could that mean 30 is the new 16? That is sort of how it is looking for me, and I am trying not to be embarrassed by it.

I just bought my first car. Sandy. That is her name, and she herself is 16 going on 17. Yes, literally. There is something about being a Painter and owning an old car. My parents’ drive way is a who’s who of Sedans that hearken back to the early 90s. But I grew up and moved out of the Painter home so quickly. I became a Constable so young, that I never experienced this right of passage. Owning a car more than half my age.

This could be called regression. Or claiming independence. Or both. I always thought I knew how to stand on my own, but I am realizing that it is something I am going to have to learn. For me, that means buying an old car on a whim, because it was there and I could afford it and it will allow me to come and go as I please.

My Jewish friends have told me about a liturgy recited at Passover that recounts the story of the Exodus. (I think Harry also explains this to Charlotte when she is converting in season 5 of Sex in the City.)  Anyway, the recurring theme is that if God had only done one miracle for the Israelites in Egypt . . . that would have been enough, but he proceeded to do many.  That is how I look at the last month and a half of my life.

A month and a half ago I was looking at a dwindling bank account and a scarce job market.  I did not have the energy to figure out how I was going to fix this, so I prayed, and tried to have faith.

Two days later I got a call from a casting director in Philadelphia that I have not heard from in two years.  She offered me a four day job as a Stand In (sort of like an extra) on a film shooting in the city.  Those four days of work felt like a miracle, and would have been enough.

Then, on my fourth day of work, the assistant director approached me to ask if I might be available to stay on and work the rest of the film shoot.  The additional three weeks of work felt like a miracle, and would have been enough.

Then, two weeks into shooting, I had the opportunity to rehearse a scene from the film with the director while the lead actress was finishing up with her hair and make up.  It was a pretty meaty scene, which was a good creative outlet for me who has not done much acting in the past six month, and I got to show the director a bit of what I can do.  Just the chance to act, not to mention the little bit of exposure felt like a miracle, and would have been enough.

But then, the director followed up this experience by offering me a small role in the film.  This does not happen.  Extras (hilariously seen on Season One of Ricky Gervais’s show, Extras) tediously try to use the job as an opportunity to be discovered, but it’s not a good idea.  It never happens, and one just ends up annoying the entire cast and crew.  Well, this time it happened . . . for me.  The above picture is a shot of my close up, right there in the middle of Central Park.  It was amazing.  A real miracle.

Somewhere in the Bible it says something like, God wants to do immeasurably more for us than we can imagine.  I have often thought that it is pretty hard to out imagine as active a daydreamer as myself, but when I said a little prayer asking for a job back in the beginning of June, I never could have guessed what was right around the corner.

“This thing has seen better days,” he said as they walked through the damp grass toward the gazebo.  She looked up to notice that indeed it had.  The awning was falling apart, whole parts of the roof were decaying and the paint was chipped, but in the gray light of the cloudy day she hadn’t noticed it until he said something.  The structure was still sound.

“Yes, it has,” she replied and thought, like many things between them, it was an appropriately dramatic setting for things to end.

She chose an outdoor location, getting a suggestion from her mom–a place she had never been and would not conveniently return to once it became the scene of the crime.  She choose outdoors, despite the rain and the crisp 58 degree temperature, because so many of their pivotal moments had occurred in similar suburban park locations: their first date, first kiss, first fight, the night he decided he was going to marry her, the night she first told him she loved him, the night when she first let him hold her while she cried and she realized what a wonderful thing is was to be comforted by him.  Outdoor settings are probably the markers of most adolescent relationships, back before there is a convient indoor place to call one’s own.

But now, twelve years later, after having shared homes together, they again sat outside as an alternative to a room in either of their parent’s houses.

“I don’t know what to say,” he finally started after a few minutes of silence while her teeth chattered.  “There are so many things that are running through my head, but in the end they really don’t matter.  In the end, I just can’t seem to find a fix.  I wish I could, but there just isn’t a fix.”

When she eventually responded, she told him it was a shame that he had never allowed her to be a part of the solution, or even the attempt at finding a solution.  That is was never them trying to find the fix.  That it was such a huge mess that no one on his own could find a fix.  But like most of what she had tried to say over the past six months, it made no difference.  Really, the point should never have been about fixing.  At best with relationships, over time, people can just hope to tend and mend the tears and holes as best they can.  Marriage isn’t about looking put together, like the culture seems to say, it is about holding together.  But he was past the point of understanding that.  So, instead they sat for a while longer in the sturdy, but worn down gazebo that no one had taken the time to fix up, until he realized that his lighter was busted and he couldn’t get his cigarette lit.

I just moved back home with my parents. Not something I ever wanted, or thought I would be doing. There is so much to say, and maybe I will start saying it regularly on this blog again, but not tonight. What I will say is that day one of my new old life happened to be the day my mom started her seasonal gardening. I was in charge of the pansies.

As we were wrapping up she said, “Here, I will share with you a few lessons from my limited knowledge of gardening: Water your garden at night, that way the plants have all evening to be nurtured by the wet soil before the hot sun comes out and sucks up all the moisture. At first you need to water the flowers everyday while they adjust from the trauma of being transplanted, but eventually you only need to water them about three times a week.”

It’s cliche, this getting back to the soil. But, I find there are a lot of reasons things become cliche. This Little Petunia, for one, needs to learn to give herself the tender care that any natural thing deserves.

So, sometimes life gets difficult, and I can do nothing about it but wait. I think it is important when I am waiting, to try my best not to KILL time. There are moments where I am crippled by anxiety, hurt or disappointment and can only count out the next second, minute, hour as it passes. But in those other moments where I have a choice in the matter, I need to figure out ways to be purposeful in my waiting. Engage in something. Create something. Allow something to matter.

I came up with this theory while doing a puzzle. Literally. Here I am trying to figure out how to piece my life together, and I start my first ever jigsaw puzzle. It’s harder than I thought. There is so much process and patience to it. Bit by bit putting it together. Laughably cliche, I know. But it feels important. Living out the metaphor.

These are some lessons that I have learned so far about doing a puzzle:

1. It’s easiest to work with a system. To first define the borders and then work my way inward.

2. The further I go, the more I know what I am looking for.

3. Puzzles are a lot better with wine and cheese.

4. I have to take time to look at every piece. And that is tedious.

5. Sometimes, doing a puzzle, it’s best to take a break and lay on the floor with my dog.

6. I take a lot of breaks.

7. Every little connection encourages me to make the next one.

8. I need to try different tactics to fit different pieces together. Some I match by the picture, some by the shape, some by the colors.

9. It takes me hours to put together just a couple of inches.

10. Most pieces come together on a whim.

I made it, 24 days of thankfulness. Coming home today felt like the closing of a very eventful year, and now I have a couple weeks to rest before starting head first into the next one. It’s so nice to spend sometime with family and get a change of scenery. I hope you feel the same this holiday season. Happy Holidays!

Went to the doctor’s today about the voice problem I have been having, four hours later, exhausted but encouraged, I left with a better understanding of what is wrong.  Then I went to the Hard Rock Cafe with Jeremy.  Tomorrow I leave for a two week holiday.  Thank God!

Started and finished my Christmas shopping this evening.  That felt good.  Chris’s cousin Jeremy came to visit for a couple of days.  He requested asian food for dinner, so we went out for Thai and then decided to head over to the local bowling alley.  There was a wait for a lane, but in the bar they were doing Trivia Night!  I love trivia.  Thai food, trivia, bowling–it was a really fun night.