Under a Black Rainbow

Tough year. Tough several of them, honestly. Feels like I've been put through nearly all of the different emotional ringers, pinballing from one to another to another with barely a moment to stop and breathe. But every hurdle gets cleared eventually.  My dear friend (and birthday twin) Mel has a thing she does every year. A kind of "lessons I've learned this year," and it's an idea I've always enjoyed copying from her as it really forces me to take stock of the past so I can move differently (where needed) into the future. These are in absolutely no order whatsoever.  *     *     * 1. Grief is relentless and doesn't give two shits about your feelings. It never goes away, but it does change; it does evolve. And you'll get dragged through that evolution whether you like it or not, but do all the things you possibly can to get yourself to a steady place. Your boat will constantly continue to fill with water until you learn your best methods of addressing

I'm sure I've talked about the milestones one experiences in life that end up changing an individual's trajectory. I can point to a number of them in my own life. And while many of them cause a fair amount of regret on my part (mostly due to my behavior rather than someone else's), none have affected me quite as much as the job I worked in San Francisco. It was the only one and, because no one else would even give me the luxury of an interview for different, better work...I left the city.   However, my time there was a perfect example of how far I'm willing to go to get what I want when I find it attainable (this often does not work in relation to other people; no means no). I took on a physically exhausting job during the day and attacked the mentally exhausting grad school work at night. My first three years out there were tough, but REALLY good. Solid friend group, solid writers to lean on and drink with, great living situation. The job was whatever, but it paid