pindrop

i signed my lease.

at the end of it, i will have lived here longer than anywhere else i've lived in my adult life. i laugh when i tell people that i've moved 19 times since moving out of my parent's home at age 22, quipping that i must have gypsy blood, or wanderlust, or a rambling bone. whatever you want to call it, no place i've lived, no matter how beautiful, how community-rich, how lucrative it may have been compares to the home i want so badly to believe that i've found here in austin. 

i knew next to nothing about austin when i agreed to move. i had vague memories of a music show on TV called austin city limits. i knew the phrase, "keep austin weird" and i knew there was this huge festival thing every year called SXSW. i also knew that it was home to some people whom i hold in high regard, and that they spoke very highly of the city. that's it. that's all i knew. in typical ann fashion, i dove head-first into this new adventure.

i'm home today, and in the unexpected stillness and silence of the day, i find myself looking around my home, wondering if it's been worth all the struggle and the strife that i've experienced on the journey that has brought me to this day, and the struggle that lies ahead. the honest answer? it's been a really high price to pay so far, and i don't know that i've gotten what i've paid for, as the saying goes.

i looked around today and i realized that, on some subconscious level, i've known this to be true. i've not hung one picture. not one curtain. nothing of permanence that would suggest that i have truly dug in my heels here, ready to settle into this place and call it home. maybe the rose-colored glasses have come off, maybe i'm just tired of the struggle, maybe i'm just lonely... likely, it's all of that and then some.

the silence, for once, is deafening, isolating, suffocating.