Circus Rambles - On Portland yet again

Time flies when you don't work Monday through Friday. Every other week I happen to notice the current date and remark upon it to my coworkers. Yesterday it was, "Jesus, it's almost September! When did that happen?"

So it's been eight months since I relocated to the Pacific Northwest. Eight months. That blows my mind, honestly. I don't know where all the time went. To be fair, a decent portion of it has been taken up by mental health degradation and and subsequent treatment. And now here we are. Summer's almost over.

I'm still adjusting to this place a bit. I still have days where I feel a bit weird calling it home. I still have days where I feel like everyone can tell I'm not from here just by looking at me. And truthfully, I haven't gotten out very much over the past several months. I've always been a bit of a homebody, and being in a new area combined with mental health struggles has kind of encouraged that. In a way it's been relaxing. I need time to myself to recharge pretty frequently or I start getting frazzled. But if I'm being honest...yeah, I need to start getting out more. Sigh. It's a process. (One that getting sick certainly hasn't helped.)

The one thing I have consistently been getting out and doing is going to poetry slams! Just watching so far; I have the world's worst case of stage fright and would probably faint if I tried to read my stuff. But watching is enough for me. It's really inspiring to watch so many talented people perform. In the past, I haven't met very many others who are interested in poetry, so it's nice to feel like I'm among my own kind. Truthfully, it's also a bit thrilling to be in the same room as a poet whose books I own and whose work I think is wonderful. (Is that weird?)

Oh yeah...I do make it to Powell's pretty often as well. It is the best bookstore in the world and I love it.

There are still a lot of things I want to do here. I haven't made it to the coast yet, or Mt. Hood, or the rose garden. I'm not even in Portland itself that much because driving downtown makes me very anxious. I need to work on that. All in good time.

For a while I was worried that maybe moving here wasn't the right decision. But the longer I'm here, the more secure I feel. Some days it still doesn't feel completely real, but I'm glad I did it. I'm trying not to get caught up on wondering what it would have been like if I'd moved here sooner. Trying to just enjoy life. It's been a while since I really enjoyed life.

I feel like this ramble was particularly rambly...Meh. It's probably all the cough medicine I'm having to take to be able to function in society. Hooray for plagues!