and how did that make you FEEL?

So. The exit interviews. After a week's worth of posts digging through relationships past and unearthing all the memories, good and bad, you'd think I would've come up with something profound to say about all of it. How it made me feel. Something deep. About feelings.

And while this has definitely been a revelatory project -- the fact that I even went through with it was pretty self-revelatory all on its own -- it didn't really get to me on any deep, emotional level or inspire some kind of dating epiphany. Or at least, it hasn't yet. Right now my brain is in a million places, and at least 600,000 or so of those are located at various points throughout my apartment, including (but not limited to) the dust bunnies under the bed that need to be routed out of their hovel, the clothes that still need to be packed in the closet and the sticky tack that needs to be scraped off the walls.

I'm just a little distracted at the moment. Because -- have I mentioned this? -- I'm moving home a week from today.

I've spent almost my entire life planning my escape from Memphis, and a healthy chunk of that planning my life in New York. Accepting that this actually isn't so much where I want to be was really difficult. It felt like I was failing, though even I wasn't quite sure at what. But when I started to think (quite recently) that I really wouldn't mind living in Memphis, that took some SERIOUS time to wrap my brain around. Not in New York is one thing. But me? Living. In Memphis. Wha?

And really, I don't know what's going to happen in the next few weeks. There are a lot of different cities that I would consider living in, should job opportunities arise there. But ideally? Here I go, admitting this for the first time in published writing: I think I want to stay in Memphis. At least for the time being.

When the whole exit interview project began and the responses started flowing in, I was pleasantly surprised by some trends I saw emerging. My favorite one is that they all mentioned our conversation in one way or another as being one of the best things about our relationship. With as much as I've scrutinized my dating patterns in the past few months, accusing myself of metamorphosing for each different partner and becoming some different version of me, I realized that's not entirely true. I have been myself. My verbose, creative, outgoing self.

And the rest of it, all the stuff we had in common back then that maybe isn't so true now? It's like living in Memphis. If you'd told me three years ago that I'd be writing those sentiments on this blog, I would've laughed at you. But now, I'd say it's much needed proof that I am still getting to know myself.

Now, back to packing.


cheers,
elizabeth