Right now my feet are warm, resting on a heated slate floor, in a sunroom, in the dark, a dim lamp illuminating just a corner of the windowed room. I’m drinking someone else’s peppermint tea because the homeowners said “help yourselves.” During a time in which I have whittled my life down to the bare minimum, I won’t say no to any offerings. My people-pleasing tendencies are melting right off my bones.
We are house-sitting. A little break from the camper. I am sprawling my body and my belongings. I am taking up space. I am desperately trying not to get too comfortable.
Meanwhile, the darkness of winter slips over the foothills of Boulder, Colorado. The sky sparkles pink each evening, high and clear, before settling to black quicker and quicker each day. The moon is searing in the expansive openness of the winter sky.
It’s impossible not to be flooded with memories, returning to this place that was home for so many years. Driving into town, we passed my first apartment — a tiny studio on a dinky side street off a frontage road — and I imagined 22-year-old Anja somehow getting a magical glimpse of 29-year-old Anja gliding by, towing her little home. Younger Anja, struggling through grad school and intensely doubtful that life would come together, would be utterly astonished.
That’s the thing about returns. I see my past self like a ghost everywhere I go. She’s hurrying up the hill to class, she’s biking through a headwind to her first full-time job, she’s going on dates and falling in love and having her heart broken. I see her on every street corner, at every bar, in every restaurant.
When you return somewhere familiar, you are reunited with all the selves who inhabited that space. They come rushing back at you and remind you — though you may have forgotten — that you are on the millionth iteration of yourself, and likely have a few million more to go.
Friends keep asking, “Is it good to be back?” And the most I can say is that it is complicated being back, 1) Because we won’t be here for very long, and 2) Because the desire within me to settle into the familiar is so strong that I don’t know if I can entirely trust my feelings. Am I really thrilled to be sitting at Illegal Pete’s, eating a fried fish burrito and sipping a $6 margarita, or am I actually just savoring the comfort? Am I honestly dazzled by the giant winter star lit up on the mountainside, welcoming the town into a new season, or am I just utterly grateful to look out the window and see a familiar ritual?
A person more closely in tune with their intution might be able to tell you. All I know is that I’m sauntering through town like I own the place. I’m filling myself with the sweet comfort of something like belonging. Already, I am indulging in the decadence of just being here.
Is that what it is to give yourself grace? To let yourself enjoy anything at all without needing to analyze or explain it? It’s very possible (read: entirely the case) that my therapist told me this years ago, but I only understand it right now, watching fresh stars poke through the night sky, not needing to understand why it is that I’m tingling with joy.
The ghosts of Anjas past keep bumping into me. All I can do is give them a big ‘ole hug when they do. Meanwhile, it must be the case that some future Anja is out there, cheering on this present self who finally knows grace.