Reflecting amongst the stars.

Finals are officially over. Which means that I have successfully completed my first semester at a real-life University. Red, cobble-stone walkways and all. Well, somewhat successfully. I don't really consider getting a B+ in English successful for me, but I digress. I'm still waiting to know how I did in Economics and, sadly, hoping I passed with a C. That professor was a real piece of work with his impossible-to-decipher accent and ridiculously worded tests. Economics is hard enough to understand, now I have to learn whatever language you're speaking and trying to pass off as English, as well?

Other than that- all A's. I even got a 99% on my math final. MATH. If you would have told me that I would do better in math than English this semester, I would have said you were insane. 

Now, finally, I am sitting on the plane next to my sweetheart and we are on our way to California. Where the weather is warm and so are the people. My people. People I've missed so terribly for the past year. I've dreamed of running into their arms and laughing amidst their laughter for months now, and the time has finally come. 

What a year. Can you believe that it's almost been a year that I've lived with those that dwell on the East? I can't. I mean, don't get me wrong, some days felt like years in and of themselves. But all in all, this year has flown by and I've learned and grown so much. So I thought that I would take the time I have now on this flight, flying amongst the stars and looking down at the perfectly tidy and lit up world below me, to talk about what I've learned and how I've grown.

I learned about snow this year and we ended up having a love/hate relationship. I had to put layers upon layers just to take out the trash and scrape ice off of my car's windshield. But let's face it, snow coats the entire world and makes it absolutely beautiful for a little while, allowing you to forget about all of the crap that lies beneath it, and that's pretty awesome. I learned how important it is to step outside of your comfort zone. Because moving across the country was not the end of stepping out of my comfort zone, it was merely the beginning. Then I had to grow accustomed to a new house, new streets, new grocery stores, new Chinese food. I had to learn how to take the train and NOT hyperventilate. It took a few months, but I'm proud to say that I can now ride the train without feeling like I'm going to throw up. I found my way around the train station. I found my way around New York City and actually look like (almost) not a tourist when I go there. I learned that you can't take anyone personally here. Literally, not a single person. They have there own way of looking at the world and it doesn't coincide with my way of looking at things, but that's okay. I had to learn how to live with them anyway.

I got engaged this year. Like, holy crap. Not only did I get engaged, but I got engaged to the love of my entire life. The person who makes me melt and still gives me butterflies. The person who can frustrate me beyond belief and then minutes later make me laugh until my stomach hurts. Someone who just gets more and more handsome every day and always holds my hand. Someone who got down on one knee in Central Park and asked me to be his forever. That really happened, believe it or not. (Sometimes I can't quite believe it myself.) And it happened this year.

I learned how important it is to follow your dreams.Yes, this year has been terrifying. It has scared the absolute shit out of me (sometimes literally... kidding. horrible visual. moving on.) on more than one occasion. My heart ached more than I knew it ever could this year with this horrible thing called homesickness. But if I'd have allowed myself to be ruled by fear one year ago, I wouldn't have any of the memories I made this year. I wouldn't have New York. I wouldn't have had a proposal in my favorite place in the world. I wouldn't have had any of it. I was braver than I was scared and that made all the difference. 

More than anything, though, I learned one thing. The most important thing that maybe I've ever learned. I learned how important family is. Love and laughter and being around people who make you feel good and happy and alive- that's what's most important. Everything else is temporary. Family is infinite. It's everything. My grandparents, my parents, my aunts, uncles, cousins, my best friend, my fiancé, my dogs, my cat... All are my family. I also learned that I am so excited to have a family of my own someday.

Christmas has always been my most favorite time of year. And I know that people say that from time to time, only half meaning it. Well, I mean it wholly. I think, though, that this particular Christmas is going to be my best one yet. I've grown. I've learned. I've thrived in a new place with new people doing things I've never done before. I'm different, I can feel that. And I'm excited for my family to see that. I'm excited to be where I am within myself right now with all of the people who mean the most to me in the world. I can't wait to smell that familiar smell of lasagna on Christmas Eve and sing drunken Christmas carols at the piano with my cousins. I can't wait to drive the streets of my hometown, knowing that I've been driving streets of my own for an entire year. I'm excited to appreciate everything. Really appreciate everything.

So Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and much love to you and yours.

Thanks for reading.

XOXO,

City Girl from Cali (on her way to Cali)

An engagement shoot to FALL for.

After my mom left to go back home to California, I immediately started counting down the days until it was time for me to go back myself for Christmas. (Down to 43 now.) I had an embarrassingly hard time after she left, as you can clearly see from my last Blog post, but in the days that ensued I began to glue myself back together.

It's true what they say about difficulties making you stronger as a person. I definitely have started feeling like The Hulk himself lately. And I'm thankful for the strength that comes just when you think you can't take it anymore. Turns out I can take it. Turns out I'm stronger than I thought.

Up and down went the roller coaster...

After picking myself up, dusting myself off, and realizing that life isn't as hard as my hormone-infused mind was trying to lead me to believe, Jason and I got our engagement photos taken. Even writing those words I kind of look at the screen like, what? That really happened?

It really happened.

Sometimes I think that I wished for this love so hard that on some level maybe I convinced myself I wanted it too much. Maybe I convinced myself that that kind of fairytale just wasn't in the cards for me. A love so big your eyes can't even stretch wide enough to see it all. That's the kind of love I have.

I don't want to come off brag-y. I never want that. I want to rejoice and show thanks for the beautiful things in my life, but I don't want to talk about them with that ever-present "neener-neener-neener" mentality. I just love him. I didn't know he existed. I didn't know a journey like the one I'm on would ever be real for me. And I have to just keep pinching myself.

I was in love before. Or so I thought. What I'm coming to wonder is that maybe I did love the person, but I was in love with the idea of that person more than the person himself. I drove myself (and probably him, too) crazy with this desire. And when I finally began to let him go, I focused on me. I focused on what I love - music, fashion, writing, reading, Netflix binging. Then I went to a party and Jason was there and we played guitar together until 2 AM and the rest, as they say, is history.

He's my best friend. AND my soul mate. I don't say that nonchalantly because I have another best friend/soul mate who is really more of my sister and I've known her since I was 5. She's also going to be my Maid of Honor. Jason is my best friend in the way that I always wanted my future husband to be. Someone who I can make laugh and someone who makes me laugh. Someone who I can fight with and make up with. Someone I can talk to and cry to and who talks and cries to me. Someone who puts up with my mood swings, going back and forth between our moving here being the best and worst decision I've ever made. (But mostly the best.) Someone who looks at me in a way that still gives me butterflies. Someone who makes me feel safe and at home and completely complete.

Someone I am going to be proud to call my husband in exactly 634 days.

'Til next time.

Xoxo,

Gossip Girl

(just kidding)

 

A girl just needs her mama, sometimes.

Hello, readers!

So today, I am a mess. Shocker. I know.

My mom is currently on a plane headed back to California, and even though this is already the 5th time that her and I have had to say an awfully hard goodbye in the last year; it is not any easier. I keep expecting that it will become nearly natural to say "so long for however many months!" and "hello to numerous phone call and text conversations a day!", but it really doesn't. It gets harder, if anything. Which is so unbelieveably frustrating. It's like 5 years are taken off of my age every time I have to say goodbye to her so I imagine that the next time I'll probably be in the fetal position sucking on my thumb and wondering how in the hell I ended up in a crazy people's institution. 

But maybe it isn't so crazy for a girl to just need her mama sometimes. Especially when that mama is all that girl ever had for many, many years of her young life. I have a great mom. It truly is a blessing in disguise that I get so upset at the idea of not seeing her every day. She's a bit nutzo from time to time, sure, but aren't we all? After all, the crazy apple don't fall far from the nutzo tree.

Her first day here, I had only gotten about 3 hours of sleep because I was just too excited. We spent the day doing all of the girly things I don't get to do as often anymore like shopping, drinking wine, and going out to lunch. I took her to the mall that I usually have to go to by myself and couldn't help but feel warm from the tips of my toes to the top of my head that I finally had someone to walk and talk with at that damn place. Now, of course, I'm thinking about the next time that I'll have to go back there by myself and how it's going to be even more horrid than before.

Her second day, we went in to the city. (Of course.) I felt warm all over that day, too, because I couldn't help but remember all of those times that my mom and I would talk about New York City. I was just a little girl when the obsession began, pictures of Manhattan covering my bedroom walls, and I'd tell her, over and over again, a real-life wish, that "one day we will go to New York City and walk around and see museums and eat hot dogs from the hot dog carts" and just a few days ago, that's precisely what we did.

We got lost and took the crowded subway up Madison to 86th Street. We saw Park Avenue, and HOLY CRAP, Carrie Bradshaw's apartment from SATC. We ate a hot dog from a hot dog cart outside The Met and I had my long-awaited Gossip Girl moment on the steps. We ventured through The Met for hours, still not seeing it all. And then promised ourselves we'd be back one day to see the rest, but Bloody Mary's were calling our names right now. We mistakenly asked an ass-hole for directions (who did not give them to us), and found our own way to the Boathouse in Central Park (thank you very much). My mom just kept saying to me, "Wow. Look where we are, Taylor! Look where we are!" It was like re-living my first time in Central Park all over again. We were going to have lunch in the Boathouse to go along with our Bloody Mary's, but we got there late and they were no longer taking lunch reservations. The snooty waitress intrugued me instead of pissed me off because - HELL-OH - real life movie moment. I wanted to slip her a twenty and see where that got me, but I didn't have a twenty.

We saw the fountain and the bridge where Chuck and Blair got married at the end of Gossip Girl. (And my mom got mad at me for continuing to refer to this gossip show she'd never seen before.) Butterflies enveloped my stomach at the sight of the wide and famous walkway in Central Park. (You know the one... it's in Friends With Benefits a lot. Sorry. Another movie reference. God, I'm such a tourist.) Then, I showed my mom where Jason proposed and "ooo"'s and "ahh"'s ensued. We exited the park at 5th and my mom got practically giddy at the sight of Tiffany's. Yes, even more so than the sight of mine and Jason's proposal spot (much to my dismay), but you have to give it to the woman- he is the one responsible for my "living so damn far away". (Her words.) She then pointed out the fountain outside of The Plaza and yelled, "Ooo! Ooo! That's where those two guys walk in that one movie!" So there. I'm not the only one.

After we found a little burger joint for dinner, I took her to Times Square. I'm pretty sure that was her favorite part of the whole day. She really couldn't believe her eyes. Plus, her eyes were being somewhat blinded by all of the lights so, there's that. We got in a mother-daughter spat walking back to the train station because I was walking too fast. What I had to explain to her was that we were in New York, and New York was walking too fast. We didn't come to a reasonable agreement, but we did decide to catch the next train instead and have one more glass of wine.

Which leads me to this, people- DREAMS COME TRUE. They might not always be what you expected and they might take sacrificies to achieve (i.e. moving across the country and dealing with a constant ache called "homesickness"), but no matter the cost; have patience, and most of all, have persistence. Don't ever think for one second that any dream you ever place in your heart is too big or too scary or too much to ask for. It is yours and it is worth it. Whatever your dream is, focus on it. Think about it. Write about it. Picture yourself having it, every single day. And I promise, in some way at some time, it will come true.

New York is a dream come true for me. It's taken so many tears and so much heartache to get here, but I got here. I didn't know how I would get here, I didn't know what it would take, I didn't know that it would be so hard... But I got here. And here is my home for at least the next two years. Here is where the love of my life sleeps next to me every night. Here is that little sparkle I had in my eye as a little girl dreaming of a life in "The Big City".

Anyway...

The rest of our weekend together was maybe not quite as exciting, but equally as satisfying. Jason took us out to breakfast at this old diner down the street. The waitress kept calling me "boo-boo". Then he took us to a pumpkin patch, with, "Oh my God! Actual pumpkins growing out of the ground!" and complete with actual hayrides as well. That night, we watched mediocre comedy stand-up shows on Netflix and mimicked all of the lines along with The Wedding Singer whilst sipping some Apple Cider Sangria that I made. It was a perfect day.

The only time we left the house on Sunday was to go to the movies. To be more specific, the dine-in movies much to my mom's thrill because she'd never been to one of those before, and saw The Martian with Matt Damon. It was a great movie. It was a perfect day.

On her last day, I brought her on the train to school with me. Jason took half of the day off, which is a miracle in and of itself because he never does that, and took us out to lunch after my classes. It was so strange to have them there on campus with me. This campus that has shaped me in so many ways in such a short period of time. A campus that I have had to conquer completely on my own. And now, here they were. Two of my favorite people in the world making this big, scary campus not quite so scary anymore. I think Jason knew I was struggling with the idea of her having to leave again, without me saying a word, and wanted to be there for me. We had many a silent conversation with our eyes that afternoon. It was, you guessed it, another perfect day.

It was not, however, a perfect evening. The later that the day got, the more hours that passed by, and the more that the sun sank down outside our apartment windows... the heavier my chest began to feel. Every time that I would think about the fact that my mom would no longer be sitting there - next to me, in her pajamas, sipping wine - just 24 hours from that moment, tears would prick my eyes, and I would squeeze my eyes tight to will those tears away. 

Of course I tried to talk myself out of having a complete and total, hormone-induced meltdown. It wasn't as if I was never ever going to see my mom again. (Like, ever.) You're going to see her in two months for Christmas, you crazy, over-emotional freak... Yeah, as you can guess, calling myself names didn't really help matters.

Nonetheless, when I was in the safety of the bathroom, shutting the door to take a shower, pulling back the curtain, turning on the water... I could no longer hold back the tears that threatened their escape. They escaped and escaped and it took all that I had to not outright sob. I don't want her to go, I begged. It was suddenly the only thought I could form. The house could have been on fire, for God's sake, and I wouldn't have noticed. I had hoped this would be the easiest "see ya later" of all, and it was quickly turning out to be the worst. I let my tears run together with the water from the shower into one, salty stream and cried and cried waiting for the ache in my chest to stop it's pesky heaving. I then suddenly felt Jason's arms around me, hadn't even heard him come in, and there he was. Holding me in the shower, fully clothed, and not saying a word while I cried, and cried, and cried... Somewhere beneath all of those tears, and all of that ache, I fell even more in love with the man I am to marry. However, it's safe to say that my eyes have been so swollen today I can hardly see out of them. 

It might sound completely over-dramatic, but all of the places we went this weekend, the places we sat, the stores we shopped in, the restaurants we ate in, the streets we walked down... they all are going to remind me of her for awhile. The thing is, that every thing I do here still feels like a dream. It feels like I'm living in someone else's body, going through the motions, and waiting for it to all feel real. It felt real when she was here. Like a piece of home comfortably next to me wherever I went. It all wasn't so scary anymore. 

It feels like a dream again now that she's on her way back. Not to mention, I nearly lost it this morning on the light rail when I sat in the same seat she sat in less than 24 hours ago and thought to myself that I'm on my own again. I thought to myself that I'll sit in this seat every day and maybe sometimes pretend she's still sitting right there next to me, eyes wide, looking out the window. For right now at least, all that I'm able to think about when I see these places is how just hours ago she was right there - right there! - and now she's on her way to being 3,000 miles away again. And I'm back to having to be brave. I'm back to facing what I wished for with as much grace as I can muster because, again, I wished for it. 

I miss my mom already. (Was that not obvious?) I miss the familiarity of home. I daydream about what it will be like to move back there where my mom is merely minutes away, always ready for a shopping trip or a snuggly movie... I daydream about it in the same way that I dreamed about this place. How fucked up is that.

I don't mean for my Blog to sound like it was written by Debbie Downer herself, but my heart hurts today. And when my heart hurts, I write. I also cry, apparently.

Thanks for listening to these writings of my heart, whomever you are.

I'll try to write about finding my way again. You know, once I'm able to do that.

Xoxo,

City Girl From Cali

In short; trains, wine, and toilet paper.

Hey there, readers.

It's been quite a while since my last post. As you can imagine, adjusting to my new routine has been quite the, well, adjustment. It has taken time and a little bit of tears. (Okay, a lot a bit.) Regardless, I have slowly but surely gained a foothold in this East Coast way of life. Not to mention, I'm still working on gaining my foothold in this University way of life. It is much more difficult than community college ever was. Which is to be expected, I suppose. But I think the whole riding the train to the light rail to finding your way around a fast-paced city thing (especially doing all of these things for the first time) adds a certain layer of "difficult" to the already "more difficult".

Nonetheless, I am adjusting. However, I miss home more since school has started than I ever did in those first 7 months of living here. Which seems strange- right? Shouldn't my unbelievable ache for home happen during the time when I have nothing but time to think about how unbelieveably much I miss home? Now, I'm so busy I have to hold my breath because there's no time for irrelevant things like breathing and I miss home even more than I did before. 

It's the worst when I'm on the train. Sometimes I look out the window, listen to music, and pretend to live out my very own music video fantasy. Mostly, though, I just think about my mom's warming ways, my family's lilting laughter, and my beautiful bestie. All of whom I miss something fierce. Everytime I say or think this lately, I feel like such a broken record that I annoy myself. Like, okay, I get it. I miss home. Blah...blah...blah... But I did choose this, remember? Do you remember that part of it, self?

I chose to uproot my entire life and move across the country. Therefore, no matter how badly I miss home, I have to keep moving. I have to keep riding the train and avoiding the bums. (At least the ones who rudely get in your face when you tell them you don't have any cash on you... HELLO! I'm not lying! I'm a college student. If it weren't for FAFSA, I'd be on that curb with ya, Pal.) I have to keep paying attention in class and doing all of my assignments. I have to keep trying to appear as though I've got it all together, even though this couldn't be further from the truth. At least, most of the time. Sometimes I do have it together. Like when I'm shoulders-deep in a hot, candlelit bubble bath with a mason jar full of wine. That would be an occasion when I would say, yeah, I've got my shit together. Sure.

When I'm running to catch my train or walking in to my Management Skills class with toilet paper stuck to my shoe... Not so much.

Until I'm bursting with inspiration and too much to say...

Xx,
City Girl from Cali

A lazy, quiet, Saturday.

It is a bright and beautiful summer day here in New Jersey. Living on the top floor of our two-apartment house, we leave all of the blinds open during the day. It allows the sunshine to dance on the hard wood floors and every time you look outside, all you see is trees. Sometimes I pretend we live in a tree house. It's so sunny and warm that it makes it hard to believe just 3 and half short months ago there was still snow on the ground. It also makes it hard for this California girl to believe that in just about 4 months, there will be snow on the ground again.

My handsome fiancé and myself were supposed to pack up the ice chest full of snacks, beer, and excellent decisions and head to the beach today. I'm trying to get as many trips in as I can before school (aka: the mayhem) begins. But after working a 70 hour week, a machine called "The Wheel" decided to break (again) and he had to go into work on a SATURDAY to fix it. It's just criminal, I tell you. But he took it like a champ, got out of there by 11, and took me to do one of my favorite things in the world- shop for more school supplies. I say more because I've already gone once this week. Now I have two stylish binders complete with brand new pens and pencils and little dividers and folders for each of my classes. Nothing can cheer me up quite like the stationary aisle at Target can. We plan on trying for the beach again early tomorrow morning. Early (sigh) because we want to get a good spot.

It is nearing 2 in the afternoon now and Jason is napping. Not surprising after working more than 70 hours in only 5 and a half days. I, on the other hand, decided to distract myself with my favorite pastime- writing- because however exhausting it may be to work 70 hours in one week, I would suffice it to say that it is almost as exhausting to be completely alone for 70 hours in one week.

Well, that's not fair. I'm not alone anymore. I now have my kitty cat Augustus who keeps me wonderful company, if I do say so myself. He yells (meows) at me when I'm doing something wrong, cuddles me when he's waking up from yet another nap, and has no problem letting me know when he wants to play fetch no matter what important show I'm watching or book I'm reading. Yes, my cat plays fetch. He admittedly plays fetch better than any dog I've ever played fetch with, in fact. He stays very focused. He only stops going to get the ball after over 20 times of bringing it back to me because he is suddenly oh so exhausted and falls wherever he is standing to take, you guessed it, another nap.

I love him.

Yeah, life is pretty good. I miss home, sure. Especially on long days like the ones I had this week where the waiting never seemed to end... Waiting for Jason to get home, waiting for the weekend, waiting for my birthday in New York, waiting for school and my life to start... A lot of waiting. I feel as though I've spent the past 7 months of my life waiting. Which draws quite an excellent parallel to our lives, I suppose. Aren't we always waiting for something?

Voltaire said, "We never live; we are always in the expectation of living."

However, on the 2 week home stretch of this 7-month excursion of which I have found myself, I am declaring, right here and right now, to live. I will finish the book I'm writing. I will go to the beach. I will read and nap and enjoy the downtime I have left. Because I have a feeling 17 units of classes will quickly make me miss all of this expectation of living.

Until next time.

-City Girl from Cali

City Girl from Cali, actually in Cali.

Hello everyone! It's been awhile...

So, yes, I am actually in California as I write this. I have been home for about 11 days with 3 more to go for one last trip before school starts. (Holy crap, school starts in almost exactly one month. Which will mean Jason and I moved away 7 months ago. Where did the time go?!)

For those of you who read my last post about coming home (and never really being able to come home again), you know that I was skeptical about the whole thing and hoped that the going back and forth would get easier. Well, it really hasn't. In fact, when I had to leave Jason once more on the curb at the Departures terminal of the airport, I thought I was going to have a panic attack. This is the longest he and I have ever been apart since we started dating and I wasn't looking forward to it.

I did, however, know that it was important for me to go spend some time with my friends and family before the craziness of 17 units starts, most likely not seeing them again until Christmas.

The truth of the matter is that my mom is the one who really pushed (and I mean 3 nagging phone calls a day for a month pushed) for this trip. I didn't even want to spend two whole weeks here, I tried to get her to agree to just one like last time. I thought it would make it even harder to leave Jason and harder to leave here when I had to go back. But I guess it's just equally hard no matter what you do. It's all hard... being here without him, being there without my family.

However, this trip truly was a blessing in disguise for me because it has allowed me to really appreciate the decision I made to move across the country. I think when any human being makes a huge decision like that, they find themselves questioning it from time to time. It's only normal. I have of course wondered what it would be like to move back home and pretend none of it ever happened, because I have of course gotten that homesick at times. This trip has shown me though that that would not be the right decision.

Home is not the same for me, maybe, because it's not where I belong anymore. I belong out there, in this gigantic world; making memories, making mistakes, growing, living, and remembering to love every second of it. Home feels small to me, maybe, because my soul has gotten bigger. It has more room to explore now.

Which isn't to say that home will always be home. I will always love my home. It's just that I made a commitment, to Jason and myself, to go on this adventure and see it through no matter how hard it gets. And it's gotten pretty hard. If I just keep dwelling on the negatives, however, it gives those negatives more power. It's like that old Native American fable goes, "You have two wolves fighting inside of you. One is vengeful, resentful, and angry. And the other is understanding, kind, and optimistic. Which wolf lives? The one you feed."

This story resonated with me so much the first time I heard it and when Jason heard it for the first time, he felt the same way. Sometimes we get in a habit of feeding the wrong wolf and I think in the cloudy haze of all that was hard and going wrong in my new life on the East Coast, I started feeding that wolf. That wolf wasn't the one that made the brave decision to move over there, but he certainly took over once I did.

Feed the right wolf.

I can see now how amazing it is that I'm living out my New York daydreams every single month. I check one more thing off my New York Bucketlist each time we go there. (Last time, I got to check off "See a play on Broadway.") Only, I always pictured myself in New York alone. Not because I wanted to be single and "not needing no man" when I got there, but because I never thought in a million years that an amazing man like the one I'm going to get to marry even existed. But he does. And every time I have to pinch myself as I wander around that city, I'm holding his hand as I do it.

It's time I slap myself somewhat silly and say, "Hey! You wanted this, you moron!" And then, you know, forgive myself for the moron comment. It's time I get excited about starting school, taking the train there, living out a new adventure and old dream. It's time I start feeding the right wolf.

But for now, I'm going to enjoy these last few days with my family and my puppies (and secretly daydream about the moment I get to run into Jason's arms at the Arrivals terminal in 3 days.)

As always, thanks for reading! Until next time.

Xx,
City Girl from Cali

Augustus.

When Jason and I decided to move here, we brought up the idea of getting a pet and then, overwhelmed by so much as it was, quickly dismissed this idea. We decided then and there that it was not going to happen. Too much expense, too much work, blah, blah, etc. "We're going to get in and get out," he told me, as if we were going off to war or planning a one night stand. No attachments.

Well... about five and a half months later, we now have an Augustus. A half pound, striped, grey ball of love. I've never been a cat person; I've always had dogs so I've always considered myself a dog person. (Augustus is staring at me now as if he knows what I'm typing and is quite offended by it.) But, I can safely say that I am now, also, a cat person because I have fallen head over heels in love with this cat.

Talk of changing our mind about the "in and out with no attachments" plan began around the time when Jason came home every night to a fiancé who had spent most of her day balled up on the couch in tears with a case of the most pathetic and lonely homesickness you've ever seen in your life. "I need a dog," I told him, eyes swollen, as if I was pleading for my life. "I can't do this anymore without a dog."

To me, having a dog would not only give me work to distract me from how much I miss home, but it would dull the ache of how much I'm alone here. I would have a companion. Someone I could talk to, allowing me to feel slightly less insane than when I talk to myself. It was like a beam of light at the end of the tunnel, a beacon of hope, if you will.

Jason immediately understood, however, (being a cat person), also immediately began trying to convince me to get a cat instead. Telling me that they are less work, less expensive, and just as awesome. I was skeptical, but decided to let the fates decide. (i.e.: our landlord.) Our lease was unclear on our even being able to get an animal, so we e-mailed her to ask about it. After saying she needed a week to think it over, she responded by saying she would be okay with us getting a cat. Jason showed me her email, smug and triumphant. It was settled. No puppy for me.

In the couple of weeks to follow, I found myself looking at pictures of kittens and trying to get myself excited. I just hadn't had much experience with cats and the ones that I'd met over my years always seemed so indifferent about, well, just about everything. 

I was also incredibly nervous on the way to the animal shelter. I felt almost as if I was on my way to a first date, or something. 

When we entered the room labeled "Kittens", I had no idea how in the hell we were supposed to pick one. You know that old saying, "When you know, you know." I looked at the black and whites, the orange tabbies, and even the gorgeous all white ones... but then I saw Augustus. His big, green eyes staring right at me from the front of his cage. Without anyone even saying a word, the lady opened the cage and handed him to me. And I knew.

There was about an hour's worth of paperwork and adoption applications to go through, during which time I spent panicking that something might go wrong and I would have to leave without this 9 week old kitten melting into my chest and falling asleep there. I was literally sweating.

When everything was finalized and they said they would get us a carrier to bring him home in, relief and joy flooded my being. I finally had a little buddy of my own. Even when he gets kitty litter all over the bathroom floor or whines at me, meowing/yelling, until I pick him up and give him a snuggle; I'm still grateful. Even as I've been trying to writing this, he has bit the shit out of my hand for using it to type instead of pet him; I'm still grateful. Because I can tell that he already loves me just as much as I love him and I didn't even know how much I needed that.