Fifteen minutes in the life.

I pull my newly purchased bag of chocolate covered pretzels, ones that I finally worked up the courage to buy, from my bag. You would think that it wouldn't be, like, a big deal to buy a bag of chocolate covered pretzels. I wanted the pretzels. I thought about them for two days, debating the calories and the extra minutes it would take me on the treadmill to work them off and whether or not I would actually enjoy them enough for those calories to be worth it, before going ahead and buying the damn pretzels. I wonder to myself why I am so weird as I try to open these pretzels. They won't open. I tug and tug, the loud crinkle of the plastic bag echoing off the bare walls of the train station waiting room. The people to the right and left of me, sitting down towards the ends of the long, wooden bench, look subtly in my direction. Nearly 60 seconds later, I am still attempting to open this bag of chocolate covered pretzels, cursing myself for having the audacity to finally buy them in the first place. When nearly two minutes go by, it starts to get embarrassing and my face begins to flush. 

A man walks up the stairs to the waiting room and asks the woman sitting 3 feet to the left of me if it's okay for him to sit down next to her, then proceeds to sit down next to me. All of this room on this bench and he sits within 12 inches of me. Not to mention he's closer to me than the woman he had asked to sit down next to. I marvel at the oddities that are my life and continue to try and open the bag of chocolate covered pretzels. 

A few minutes later the man asks no one in particular if this is the track with the train that leads to Trenton, New Jersey. 

"No," a girl sitting down the bench to the right of me tells him, "that's Track 4. It's on the other side of this track and-" she points out the window to the train making it's exit from the station, "it just left."

"Dammit!" He cries, bringing his hands to his head. He then gets up and runs back down the stairs to the station.

I bring my attention back to the bag of chocolate covered pretzels and my arms begin to shake with exertion. I dig my nail into the top of the bag, trying to poke a hole in it so I could then rip the bag open from there. Science. It doesn't work, and my nail starts to hurt.

An African-American man in his fifties sitting farther down the bench than the lady to left of me begins to rap aloud the lyrics to the song he's listening to on his iPod. Everyone in the waiting room stiffens in an awkward manner as we all try to pretend that this is totally appropriate. I mean, why wouldn't we want to listen to his rendition of from what I can tell are a string of mumbles and obscenities?

I pull my keys out of my bag in an attempt to poke a hole like before, only with something stronger and more durable than a nail, but can't quite get my grip right and by now, the girl to my right is just outright staring at me. I have become her train-waiting entertainment. 

I decide to take a break and read my book for awhile. I pull my book out of my bag and read about a paragraph when my stomach starts to grumble. Going for the sneak-attack approach, I pick up the bag again and pull on its sides really, really fast. As if somehow I've gotten stronger and the bag weaker within the thirty second time frame of me setting it down. It doesn't budge.

The woman to my left starts making strange moaning noises that make me incredibly uncomfortable. I look around to see that everyone else is pretty uncomfortable about it, too. Her eyes are closed and she's just sitting there, moaning. I shake my head. 

I check the time. 2:48. The train will be here in 13 minutes. I begin to read my book again. The man continues his rap. The woman, her moan. I check the time again. 2:50. Fuck.

I pick up the bag of chocolate covered pretzels and stare at it. Just stare at it. Okay... I tell it. In my mind, of course. I'm not a crazy person. We are going to try this one more time, my friend. And this time, you will open up so that I can enjoy the chocolatey, salty goodness I damn well paid for. Got it?

I muster up the strength and courage of a mighty warrior as I once again place my hands along the sides of the plastic bag of chocolate covered pretzels. In seemingly slow motion, I tug and the bag gives way, revealing to me a sea of tiny chocolate covered pretzels.

"YES!" I exclaim, fist in the air. A mighty warrior who's battle has been completed. My chest swells with pride as I look around only to find an empty train station waiting room. No one there to witness my defeat.

I look out the window to see my train has arrived, stuff my chocolate covered pretzels in my bag, and run to join the others on the train.

Snow day.

Everyone, and I do mean everyone, talked about this blizzard for the past two weeks. Claiming it would break records (and it did!) and it would certainly prevent East Coasters from venturing outside of their homes for the entire weekend.

I was skeptical... Today marks the day exactly one year ago that Jason and I finally drove across the country and arrived on the East Coast. On that day, there was another so-called "record-breaking snow storm", but we only ended up getting about 6 inches and it wasn't really record-breaking at all. Jonas 2016, however, lived up to it's heightened dramatics.

Looking out the window every few minutes, because I just couldn't bring myself to believe my own eyes, all I could see was a blur of white. Quarter-sized snowflakes falling frantically from the sky and then being whipped this way and that by mighty gusts of wind. Within hours, my car sat in the driveway completely covered by the snow.

"Would you like another Hot Toddy?" Jason would ask me, getting up to make his way to the kitchen.

Why, yes, handsome future hubby of mine, yes I would.

Buried in blankets and snuggled up with my purring, cuddly cat, Jason and I watched movie after movie as the snow made it's wild descent and engulfed our little corner of the world in sheets of white.

Later in the afternoon, I wrapped myself up in my warmest jacket, threw some boots on over my pajamas, and bounded out the door to play in the snow. Jason followed me, laughing, and once nearly waste-deep in the fluffy white snow, I found myself in a fit of giggles. Finally getting to know how it felt growing up in a place where snow like this came every year. Feeling like a little kid experiencing the wonder of snow for the first time. Marveling at how beautiful my street looks covered in white.

Living here is hard sometimes. Usually in those quiet moments when I'm on the train, sitting by myself, and my mom calls me as if she can feel that I need to hear her voice, hear some familiarity, and minutes later some ass hole comes up to me saying I need to get off my phone. It's also at those times when I all I want to do is go out and have some wine with my best friend and talk about all of the girly things I have to now make Jason endure listening through. Or when I'm walking by myself through a big, crowded city, making my way to my next class, and wishing the people here were easier to make friends with.

However, as hard as those times get, and as much as I won't miss them once back in California, it's on days like today when all of my classes are canceled at the last minute on account of SNOW, that I revel in living here. My first official snow day... Honestly, I never thought I'd have one of those.

I was nearly ready to walk out the door when Jason called me from the car on his way to work.

"Hey!" he said, as I silently panicked because I thought his car broke down or something. "Stop getting ready! Go back to bed! Your school got 28 inches of snow and canceled classes! Check your e-mail!"

Excitedly, I did just that.

My first official snow day... I think I'll build a snowman.

Xx,
City Girl from Cali

New year, same me.

I'm a very nostalgic person. Jason tells me this often, and he's right, but just as he tells me and just as I know myself- being a nostalgic person is not a bad thing. When I was in high school, and even after I graduated, I thought it was just teenage adolescence. That I was being a dramatic teenager who had had her heart broken one too many times and found solace in becoming a tortured artist. Maybe that was part of it, but as I have grown out of my teenage years and slowly but surely into adulthood, I've realized that it wasn't teenage dramatics at all. I'm simply just a nostalgic person. And, okay, a little bit of a tortured artist.

I say all of this to talk about the fact that as I have been on a break for the last couple of weeks, patiently waiting for school to start back up again, I have been heavily reflecting on my life thus far. I have taken notice of how much I've learned, how much I've grown, and realized that I will never really stop growing. So many different chapters in my book already written, and so many blank pages to go... It can be overwhelming. But in the greatest way.

Sometimes, though, in my reflecting... I feel inadequate. As if me going to school full time in order to (hopefully) graduate before I'm, like, oh I don't know, FORTY, somehow makes me a lesser person. I just feel like I should be working and contributing, but I know that as long as I attend school here, there's just not enough hours in the week for me to even think about getting a job. Maybe when we move back to California while I finish up my last semester or so...

Nonetheless, I also panic about my future career sometimes. It's intimidating being engaged to someone who already has his shit together. He knew what he wanted to do since high school, graduated, went to college, and did it. Why can't I be more like that? If I was, I could be in my own career right this very moment. Which brings me back to my nostalgia- my tortured artist soul.

I love so many different things. And not really any one of them more than the other. Which makes it hard to decide which of those things I'm going to choose, run with, and make a career out of. So much pressure, I feel like a tea kettle about to blow sometimes.

The thing is, though, that I put the pressure upon myself. No one else is pressuring me to figure out my career path right this very second or telling me I'm not good enough because I don't have a part-time job at the local Dunkin Donuts or something... I'M telling me that. Which means I'm already going against my very first New Year's Resolution.

1. Be happy with exactly where I am.

I want to appreciate the time that we have left living here, and not worry so damn much. I miss home, I will for as long as we live here, but we'll be back home soon enough. And I sure as hell don't want to look back on our time here and wish that I'd been more present. I don't think it's very "present" of me to be so hard on myself.

2. Do more of what I love.

I got this amazing camera for Christmas. (Thank you, dad!) And I have not put it down since. I have always loved photography and taking pictures and now I know I can take it to the next level with this camera. I love being behind the frame and hearing the satisfying click of the shutter. I love it more than I knew I would.

I want to finish my book this year and TRY to get it published. The manuscript is nearly done, but do you know how scared I am to put my story out into the world? It's so personal... I've of course changed the names and embellished for dramatic effect, but it's still my story. It's my heart. How do authors do what they do? They're heroes of their own kind.

3. Lose weight.

Ha. Just kidding.

So I'm a nostalgic person. Hence, the book I'm writing on mine and Jason's entire love story. I'm a tortured artist who loves too many things to know what to do with. I'm a bit of weirdo, a little crazy, and a little scared. But it's a new year, and even though I'm not going to pretend like so many others that the sheer changing of the clock over to a new year on New Year's Eve makes me an entirely new person, I do believe in clean slates and starting fresh. So I'm going to take the person that I am, continue to grow, continue to do what I love, and see what the hell happens.

Who's with me?!

Thanks for reading, as always.

Xoxo,
City Girl from Cali