all of the reasons i am the problem

(i'm afraid something is irreversibly wrong with me!!)

I’m two beers in in some hotel room in Bozeman and i’ve spent all day driving. Yesterday, we left our apartment in Bellingham, WA for the last time, all of Andy and my things split between my Subaru and his Tacoma.

Eight months ago I left for the West Coast. I remember packing my car and feeling a little sad that everything I owned fit in a Subaru Forester. This time I am relieved. When you own very little, the little you own tends to be intentional and full of meaning.

Leaving Bellingham, I can’t shake the feeling that I have forgotten something, though I know I couldn’t have. We left the apartment spotless. Somewhere over the dry slopes of Eastern Washington I wonder if it’s not that I’m forgetting something, just that I can tell I’m leaving behind the dream of the Pacific Northwest. Whether that is true or just romantic sounding, I feel a little lighter with every mile on the road.

I realized tonight, just moments ago (two beers and a big, big burger in) I didn’t have a post ready for tomorrow. I’ve been bouncing around so many ideas this week, and to be honest in my head it was still Thursday, not Saturday night. This will likely be the least polished post you’ll see on here. It will probably be one of the more honest.

(I’ve soft committed to every Sunday; it seems bad luck to miss right before the New Years. I’m not superstitious but then again I am).

a nonesensical collection of photos i've taken on this drive in the past two days; an amazon truck in Idaho (i dont really use amazon), a do not enter sign looking back toward western washington from the eastern slopes, snow at the peaks and hotel signs from a gas station in montana, beer in the place andy and i grabbed dinner (delicious), all signs of a very mid 2020s americana road trip i believe

There’s no snow in earnest till Montana, but in the mountains of Idaho fog lingers painting the trees with rime ice. I don’t stop to take a photo. In the shadows of the mountains, the low hanging fog is eeire blue periwinkle, drastically shifting to buttery yellow when you round the mountain to where the fog meets the sun. The color of fog lit blue in the mountain shadow by blue skies above is something I know about now. I had never seen that color before— periwinkle and glowing, with more depth.

It’s somewhere after Missoula (oh we’re in Big Sky Country now) that I can’t shake the feeling that the problem is me.

In middle school, the boy with the locker next time mine called me a cry baby. Naturally, I cried when he said this. Later that year, a group of girls I’d thought I was friends with decided I wasn’t. I remember watching them have parties without me, and make fun of me. One of them, later in high school during soccer practice, threw a water bottle at my head as a joke. She missed, just barely. Two of the girls with her laughed, but one of them didn’t. We became friends later.

This isn’t to say I was terribly bullied, not any more than any other girl and definitely not as bad as some, but somewhere along the way I got it in my head that there was something wrong with me, that I was different than all the other girls and they could tell and I needed to do my best to make sure no one else ever saw it.

Outside my window east of Missoula the snow melted away to just patches in the valley, big blue sky stretching above, and I caught myself wondering if maybe the Pacific Northwest culture wasn’t the issue at all—

Maybe it’s me. Maybe that sinking feeling I’ve had in my stomach since middle school, the one that something is fundamentally, unfixably wrong with me is true and everyone can see it. Maybe the reason I didn’t like the Pacific Northwest after all is that there I am so obviously different there that it brings out that fundamental unlikableness, and made my worst fear a little bit true.

And maybe in the Pacific Northwest when confronted with that, the idea that maybe I am a little bit hard to like, it was too hard of a feeling for me to learn to live with and I would rather just be back in the Midwest where I’m comfortable.

Listen, in my rational head I know that there is nothing wrong with me. Middle schoolers are just mean. We just don’t get along with everyone. Everyone has horrible awkward social interactions where they come across poorly, and we all lay awake at night sometimes thinking why why why did i say that? That doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with us.

Still, somewhere in Montana barreling toward the Continental Divide, snow growing increasing patches and ice building on the road in shadows, I become convinced that something is wrong with me.

The farther I drive, the more the snow pack, the bluer the sky, the more I start to wonder— what if I move back to Minnesota and I still don’t feel like I belong. What if I’m still unhappy? What then?

well… wherever you go there you are. in the same way that the Pacific Northwest could not change me, neither will Minnesota.

What if I am only capable of disappointing myself? What if I cannot learn how to be content?

Around me, everyone is making resolutions and plans, reflecting on their years, the successes the failures.

I find myself jaded towards the idea of sharing highlights or resolutions at all— but maybe it’s because I did not have enough wins this year to cobble together a list of highlights, and I am secretly more jealous than I pretend to be. Maybe it is because I am too jaded to harness shreds of optimism into resolutions. (maybe something is wrong with me).

I’m sharing this not because I believe this is true (that I’m unlikable and a problem and going to be miserable wherever I go), but because I remember feeling like this in college and thinking I was the only one in the world.

Now, I know it’s just a feeling that will pass, and it’s a feeling that a lot of people have.

Community and belonging are where you make it— maybe I could’ve had that in the Pacific Northwest, but the truth is I just didn’t want it badly enough. I always knew I wanted to come back to Minnesota. Probably, with time and patience I’ll find what I’m looking for.

And I think I found my New Years Resolution after all—

I’ve spent so much of my life focused on being happy, moving towards some abstract idea of a version of myself I wanted to be. This year, today, tomorrow, the year after, I’m going to practice simply being content.

I don’t need euphoric happiness or some idyllic wonderful life, but I want to practice appreciating the place and the moment I’m living in. I would like to practice forgiving myself, and letting myself be unlikable sometimes, and say silly things. Hopefully too, I’ll be able to extend some extra patience and understanding both to myself, but also to other people.

Contentedness, and being okay with myself (and even being okay with that sometimes I won’t love myself), and hearing other people out, even when I don’t want to or feel like I have to. That’s what I think I’ll be working towards in 2024, that’s all.

this post was written supper last minute, sorry about that! here are some posts that I put a little more time and thought into:

• last weeks wherever you go there you are

• i’m going back to minnesota, the initial post aka part one of maddy’s second cross country move of the year!!

• no points for trying, an orca post