saying goodbye

i traded in my mini cooper tonight. after seven years together, it was the hardest good-bye i've had in a very long time.

i cried all the way home, and i've cried several times since getting home. i even think tears were freezing on my cheeks while i tried to walk away some of the grief with scarlet on the leash. it was hardly just a car...

we made cross country trips together - three times, my mini and me. we campaigned for obama together all over the country. not just in indiana or south dakota, but in every state we drove through. windows painted until the middle of 2010 when i moved to DC, obama stickers adorning the bumper and the dash. she was the perfect campaign car, in obama blue with black racing stripes.

my brother and i laughed while replacing her toggle labels with silly stickers so that "unlock" would read "ejector seat" and "window" read "periscope". we made a dozen trips to vegas, crossed the golden gate bridge, ventured down eldorado's gravel roads, and parked a few blocks from the white house. we stopped to photograph bears in yellowstone park, checked out the back side of mt. rushmore, dodged hail and tornadoes in kansas, crammed five giggling grown-ups in for a trek to knotts scary farm, climbed california's highest hills in silver lake and echo park. we moved from the casas del sycamore to the ancelle, and bounced for three years down descanso to the music box steps. then on to DC we marched in step. and in missouri tonight we parted ways.

tis a very sad night for me. it feels like the last piece of the life i used to have is now parked on a lonely volkswagen parking lot. and here i sit wailing at my computer over my first great sacrifice as a mom. when my new car gets here on tuesday, i've no doubt i will be the coolest thing ever seen driving a station wagon, but until then i think i will revel in the glory days we shared, and mourn the loss of my favoritest car ever and the era i left behind tonight.

she will never be just a car...

~k

ritualism

i think i've mentioned that i'm moving, but i don't know that i've mentioned that i'm moving beyond the reach of the ny times.

i didn't know this, of course, until yesterday. i was calling around to update my address (i always like to start with those publication-types as it takes them a few weeks to get the change in the system), and i was informed by the ny times that they don't deliver to my new address. and whilst that might not seem like much more than a minor inconvenience in the grand scheme of things, i started bawling.

it might be easy to blame the breakdown on all the craziness i've been through the past coupla weeks, that maybe i just needed a straw to break the tear dam, but i think it's more than that. since i've been on my own, the ny times has been on my stoop every sunday morning, whether rain or shine, los angeles or washington, here or there or anywhere. i look the whole week forward to my sunday mornings with my coffee, meet the press, and my ny times.

i love the way the paper smells, the way i feel pulling it apart and lining up the sections in the order i'll read (starting _always_ with the 'week in review'), the smudges it leaves on my hands, and that distinct weight, shape, and feel of the ny times. i have even grown fond of battling the damn thing when it won't turn pages as i'd like.

and even though i don't always get through the whole paper, there's just something about that piece of my sunday morning ritual i'm not ready to let go of.

~k

p.s. my fiance hasn't given up. and neither have i.

the end of an era

where do i even begin?

this whole little year end rundown might get a bit boring, so i do apologize, but watching the chips of my life fall into place with such effortlessness and to land so beautifully is a lot to wrap my mind around.

just a coupla years ago, i walked out of a year forcibly leaving all the shit behind. i shed all the ropes and shackles holding me back (being haunted by my failed marriage and fearing at my core that i would always be alone), and went to paris alone to revel in my solitude and celebrate my liberty. it was there i learned that i could love someone again, someone who loved me just as much.

so that when i met him, en route to my new (see temporary) life, i would never doubt that he's the one i'm meant to share my life with. and after an insane roller coaster of a year (getting scarlet, leaving los angeles, zip's wedding, driving across the country with my brother, and starting a new (blech) life and a new job on the other coast), i'm ready to be a grown up and seize the life i really want. and i found the person i want to be a grown up with.

the best part is that he feels the same way. this past sunday, he put his grandmother's engagement ring on my finger at brunch in a rotating restaurant on top of st louis, and asked me to marry him. and even though there was no doubt in his mind that i was going to say yes, he was so nervous he was shaking. that's the love i want. and the love i want to give.

so here's to 2011, the best year of my life.

so far...

~k