Coffee, Cats, & Sarcasm

Two weeks ago, I flew to Iowa to be with my dad while he underwent surgery to remove a cancerous tumor and lymph nodes from his colon. All went as planned—they removed the cancer while leaving his resilient spirit and trademark sense of humor intact. Other than a brief trip to the ER last week due to dehydration, he is doing well and enjoying being home.

I am so glad I could be there while Dad was going through this procedure. I am also glad for the late-night talks I had with my sister, and for the bonding time I got with my niece, who I had the distinct honor of accompanying as she searched for—and found—the perfect dress for her senior prom in May. I am glad to have gotten the chance to reconnect with my uncle, with whom I have more in common than I realized.

Whenever I visit my family, I realize how much I miss them, and how much I miss by not being around. I always feel like just a little bit of an outsider—like I belong, but don’t quite fit. Thus, it is always with a mixture of relief and regret that I board the plane back to Seattle; though, inevitably, after each visit, I find myself asking the same question:

Should I move back?

When my husband and I moved to Seattle in June of 2014, we didn’t really have a plan. Both of us wanted simply to leave Iowa. I had always dreamed of moving to New York City (and still do), but my husband gently pointed out that because I had lived in Iowa my whole life, and the largest city I had ever been exposed to had a population of just over 200,000 people, that I might not quite be ready for a city of eight million (he later admitted that he wasn’t, either). My husband went to Western Washington University in Bellingham, and really loved Washington State, so we settled on Seattle. Before we came here, I knew next to nothing about Washington State or Seattle. I just knew that if I didn’t leave Iowa right this second, I never would. I was convinced that whatever was out there, the grass had to be greener.

So, we packed everything we could fit into Jonathan’s Toyota Corolla—including our dog, Stella—said our goodbyes, and headed west. We had no plan, no jobs, and the apartment we thought we had secured fell through. Yet I held tightly to a childlike faith that everything was simply going to work out. And it did—eventually. We were homeless for about a week when we got here, staying in different hotels and looking for jobs before finally finding an apartment with a young couple in Lake City. After six months, we moved (sans roommates, who had, in a rather dramatic fashion, split up) to Belltown, where we still live today, albeit in a different apartment. We both have decent jobs (after stumbling through some crappy ones) and two cats we adore—Stella went to live with a different family shortly after we arrived in Seattle, when we realized our situation was too unstable and simply not fair to her. She is now a happy, comfortable old lady, living out her days with a retired navy vet and his wife in Bremerton.

Though I often wonder what my life would be like now had we stayed in Iowa—or thrown caution to the wind and tried our luck in the Big Apple—I don’t regret moving to Seattle. The past decade has been one of immense personal growth. If I had stayed in Iowa, for instance, I may not have fully come to terms with my sexuality, or been brave enough to chop off all my hair. I have met some amazing people here. There are many reasons to love Seattle, though it is not without its problems.

I do, however, regret the way we moved. I wish we had planned things out just a little bit more. Then again, perhaps it is true what they say, that everything happens for a reason. If we hadn’t given up Stella, we wouldn’t have gotten to raise Prim and Hastings. If I hadn’t suffered through three years of a job I hated, I wouldn’t have found the job I liked, which was a stop along the way to the job I love. All three of those jobs brought people into my life who have changed me in some fundamental way and helped shape me into the person I’m finally learning to love.

So, no. I don’t want to move back to Iowa. For several reasons, both political and personal. I had to move away to find the person I was meant to be, and if I go back, I think there is a very good chance I will lose her again.

Plus, I’d have to get a car…and driving scares the shit out of me.

But I do want to travel back to visit my family more often. Once, maybe twice a year, if possible. My parents are getting older and coming to terms with their mortality, and I’m realizing that I didn’t stop needing them quite as much as I thought I had, and I think they might still need me, too. Plus, my sister and I finally have a good relationship, and that feels pretty darn great.

Iowa will always have a special place in my heart. It will always be home, because that is where I was born and raised and where my family is. Seattle, as the place I have lived for the past decade, is also home. I think it is OK to give that title to both places. I think, at the end of the day, home is not so much a place as it is a feeling.

And if we ever do decide to leave Seattle, we will do it in a way that is—hopefully—a little more carefully planned. :)

On February 1, downtown Seattle saw its first snowfall of the season. Accumulation was negligible, as it usually is in the downtown area, but watching it fall is nevertheless an exciting treat. As we gathered by the window of our 17th floor apartment, we noticed many people in the surrounding buildings doing the same. Many were in various states of undress, but no one cared. Everyone was smiling. Perhaps most excited of all were our cats, Prim and Hastings, who alternated between leaping against the window to try and catch the snowflakes and simply staring at them, fascinated.

We then noticed another rare form of precipitation: bubbles of varying sizes had suddenly appeared as if by magic. The shimmering orbs mingled with the swirling snowflakes, their pink and green hues incongruous with the wintry scene before us. Puzzled, we looked around, finally discovering the source. The bubbles were coming from the apartment adjacent to ours, their creator a dark-haired woman who was, presumably, the new tenant. She was blowing bubbles out of her open window into the snow, for no other apparent reason than she simply enjoyed it.

The cats, meanwhile, ran back and forth on the windowsill, batting their paws against the glass to “catch” the bubbles as they floated by. They were clearly having the time of their lives.

I assumed the bubbles were a one-off, but the next day, they returned, and the cats once again went crazy.

Later that week, I was heading home from work, and I passed a woman as I was coming out of the elevator. I performed the customary Seattle greeting (acknowledging her while not really acknowledging her and making as little eye contact as possible), and as I was walking to my door, she spoke.

“I’m friends with your cats!”

After I took a second to process that a stranger was speaking to me, I turned. “Are you the bubble lady?”

She smiled. “I am!”

I told her my cats love her, and to please keep doing what she was doing. She assured me she would. We introduced ourselves and went our separate ways. The bubbles have returned nearly every day since.

I don’t know about anyone else, but February has been a hard month for me. Though the sun has been shining, the cold is unceasing and I have very little mental or physical energy. I am tired and I am sad. This woman and her bubbles have helped to ease that sadness, even if just a tiny bit.

Thank you, Bubble Lady. Thank you for reminding me that joy can be found in the smallest and most unexpected things. Cats, of course, know this lesson well — but we humans sometimes need reminding.

In my family, birthdays have always been a big deal. When I was growing up, the birthday person always got to decide what was for dinner, always got the cake of their choice (except for that one time I wanted a cherry cheesecake and my mom said no because it had “too many calories” – thanks for the fat-shaming, Mom!), and my dad would always get the camcorder out and record the opening of gifts, which were invariably wrapped in the Sunday comics. I always looked forward to my birthday.

I will never forget my 15th. My friends threw me a surprise party at the home of my best friend, Cassie. I walked in and there was everyone I loved, smiling at me, standing around an ice-cream cake (my favorite) from the local shop. We had dinner (I do not remember what) and then went to see Vanilla Sky. The movie was terrible, but I didn’t care because it was otherwise a perfect day, filled with my favorite things and favorite people.

As an adult, my birthdays, for the most part, have been disappointing, and I think it’s because I keep trying to chase the feeling I had that day, twenty-three years ago. Every year, I hope, perhaps foolishly, for a birthday as epic as that one. I hope that all of my favorite people will make a fuss over me. I hope for enthusiastic “happy birthday” messages and surprise parties. I hope to go out for dinner and drinks and do my favorite things with all my favorite people. If there’s ice cream cake, all the better. :)

This week, I turned 38, and once again, my birthday was, overall, disappointing. There were bright spots, of course – my husband bought me flowers (which my cats are now determined to eat), my coworkers took me out for lunch, and I had some delicious pizza – but still, as always, something was missing. I realize that, as adults, we are all busy and spread apart; not everyone has the time or energy to go out to celebrate (particularly if it’s a weeknight), some people forget, and others simply don’t care. Perhaps there is an invisible age threshold that, once crossed, demands one stops caring about one’s birthday and treats it as just another day. Perhaps I’ve unknowingly crossed that threshold and desiring epic birthday celebrations is now considered not only childish, but selfish. Perhaps I am just too old for birthdays.

I must also consider the possibility that what I have actually been chasing since I turned 15 is the feeling of love and validation I felt when I walked into that room full of smiling faces. Indeed, there must be some truth to this, for every year without fail I find myself scrolling Facebook to see who left me birthday greetings. I can’t help it. Each message from a friend or family member wishing me well is akin to an acknowledgement that I am allowed to exist, that it is OK for me to take up space in this world. One message I received the other day was from a friend who literally told me “I am glad you exist”, and honestly, I do not understand why more people don’t say this to one another.

I am well aware that depending on others for this type of validation is dangerous, but despite the fact that I have come a long way toward learning to love myself in the last eight years or so, it certainly helps to know that others do, too. So yes, I suppose that’s a big part of why I look forward to my birthday each year.

In any case, the fact remains: I create unrealistic expectations for my birthday that no one could possibly fulfill, and I inevitably end up breaking my own heart. That’s exactly what happened this year, and I now sit firmly in my annual post-birthday depression, where I will withdraw into my books and my writing until such time that I can stop convincing myself that I am not worthy of love – or cake.

Thank you to the person on the r/writing subreddit who provided me with my inspirational quote for the day:

“Your writing is either great, or it’s making you great. There is no in between.”

My two biggest goals for 2025 are 1) to read a lot, and 2) to write a lot. I have been working on a first draft of a novel since 2020 – yes, I know. It's supposed to only take a few months to write an entire first draft, right? My problem is twofold: massive undermotivation coupled with massive insecurity. I have been told I'm a good writer (mostly by family and close friends, but that still counts...right?) but I have a major problem not comparing my work to that of other, “actual” writers. What if I finish a novel and no one will publish it? What if I self-publish it, and no one reads it? Or worse yet – what if they do read it, and they hate it? In the words of Marty McFly: “I just don't think I can handle that kind of rejection!“

When I am feeling disheartened about writing and in need of comfort, I turn to Stephen King. In King's excellent memoir On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, he is adamant that “you must not come lightly to the blank page.” Believe me, Mr. King, I do not. On days when I am feeling motivated, I open my laptop and greet my barely-begun novel with optimism, determination, and grit – other days, the best I can offer are sweaty palms and a sense of lingering doom. It is comforting to know that I feel this way because I care about my writing and want it to be good. I'm already a good writer because I care about being a good writer.

The second line in On Writing that I find comforting is: “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.” I read all the time, and I write fairly frequently, though admittedly not every day. But to know that, in the eyes of Stephen King, this already qualifies me as a writer gives me the courage to keep pecking away.

Here's to the new year. Let us not come lightly to this blank page.