Demons in Madison

Bendy time is getting bendier.

I'm at my sister's new house in Wisconsin. I came up here to help her move in and get settled. She's been here for months, but her stuff just arrived from overseas. We met for an urban girl weekend in Chicago and then I went to Madison for meetings with the Cube and then I drove up here. And I have been having very big emotions. I haven't really figured out all the reasons why . . . but I may have stumbled across one.

I think I am revisiting the places where I used to dream . . . but left. And now I'm back in those places, returning empty handed, and all those dreams are flooding back.

I grew up visiting Wisconsin because my grandparents were all here. I would spend my days daydreaming, transporting myself into my adult future for hours, while feeding the fish on the dock, or wandering around the woods, or walking up the road or floating around in the lake. Always dreaming of an grown up life with great successes and dramas.

I went to college my Freshman year in St. Paul. I was clueless and scared and poor and spent my time dreaming of a time when I could rent an apartment and cook and have money. When I would be confident.

I transferred to a college in Ohio, where I dreamt of having a car and driving away -- off to my New York Actress Life -- where I would be greatly respected and internationally acclaimed. Where I had enough money to buy cigarettes and clothes and stay in nice hotels.

After college, I would come to Chicago to visit my old friend over Thanksgiving. Chicago would be overcast and cold and everyone would be in fantastic hats and coats and boots and they would be bustling to their important jobs and I would have no money and be hanging around with my friend who had less . . . and I would LONG for a warm, fancy restaurant and good food and a taxi instead of waiting for the bus. I would long for my hipster apartment where my friends would gather and they would be funny and accomplished and confident.

I feel like I spent a lot of young time longing. Longing for money enough to be independent. Longing for confidence enough to have a job I loved doing and that actually contributed something more than answering some salesman's phone. Longing for interesting companions who had things to talk about. Longing for my own interesting and confidently told stories to tell.

After college, I moved back home -- to the west. Where it never feels like this. It is never dark and cold and snowy. Wool and long coats and hot chocolate never make sense. It isn't gray in the sky like this. And it is never this cold. Anywhere.

And I think, after living in the west in my life that I live, these location specific longings just disappeared. Why long for your cool, covered in dark wood apartment in Chicago, when you will never live there or visit or go back or even think about it? Why long for an ice-covered street of old, pointy roofed houses when you will never live in one?

When you could never live in one.

(See? There's the rub, now, isn't it? "Could never." These dreams were dreamt thinking I "could never.")

On this trip I came back to visit and all the failure came back with me. All the dreams I didn't make come true. I should have moved to Chicago after college and had the wood apartment. I should have stayed in St Paul and bought one of the pointy houses. I should have moved to New York and tried to act . . . but I didn't because I couldn't because I was clueless and poor and untalented and uninteresting. Because I couldn't figure out how.

But then, in Chicago, after the first day, I started to beat off the demon of poverty. Swatted away the failure of choosing the way I did. When I was there before, I used to have to eat cheap and figure out the subway because I couldn't afford anything else. This trip my sister and I stayed in an absolutely over the top hotel and ate dinners that cost $300. We went to the museum and had lunch there. Because we could afford it. I even had on a great hat and sexy boots. I was independent and free from the heart breaking limitations I felt the last time I was in Chicago. I feel like I reclaimed the place for myself. My new self. Not the one my old friend used to boss around. I was able to be the self I wanted to be and that I currently am. Without any shame.

In Madison -- where I never dreamt a dream but which looks and feels just like St. Paul -- I attended parties, and ate with my well traveled, quite accomplished friends who told confident stories -- and who laughed at mine. Who laughed at mine . . . because I had some to tell.

Now I'm in Appleton, helping my sister . . . and we drove around a neighborhood with pointy roofed houses. Houses which, after a bit of planning, she and I could both afford.

And so my big emotions have been bending in on me. I am back to the snowy middle where I haven't been for a long time. All my old dreams and longings are returning, painfully at first. I thought I returned to them empty handed. But what I realized this morning is that I haven't. I have independence and sexy boots. I have a great hat. I have money enough to go out to lunch, rent a car and blow $400 on dinner. I met with my internationally traveled, professional friends who like me. I had interesting stories to tell over drinks. I could drive downtown here and, with a bit of planning, buy a pointy roofed house, for fuck sake!, and adopt a dog, and make my friends some dinner.

For the first time in my life, I am being forced to realize I am finally the grown up woman I longed to be.

Poof.

So, I guess, the next question is . . . what next? What do I want to do with all this independence, confidence and money?

What are all the things I want to do next?