The Little Red Escort That Could, Or: Whether Or Not I Can, Too

Dear little red Escort: your origin story and your first year with me are inextricably tied to bad memories, so you'll always be tainted in my eyes because of that.

But we had so many good memories, too--endless road trips throughout the Northeast, particularly notably a late-night drive to Ocean City, MD, only to turn around a few hours later due to Hurricane Irene evacuation.

You helped me move out of a temporary stay at my parents' to the post-bad memories apartment I had all to myself, got me to work and back for years, you transported Corky-Corgi home when I adopted him, ferried me to boyfriends' houses in- and out-of-state, served as an echo chamber when I cried and then cried some more in hospital parking lots, and politely managed to remain issue-free throughout our time together, including the entire duration of a 2,883-mile cross-country trip stuffed to the gills, to that scary unknown state we currently call home.

I didn't think I could be so attached to a car I professed to despise for your non-manual transmission shortcomings, those pesky crappy memories, and the level of anxiety-laden desperation when I decided I wanted to sell you, and sell you IMMEDIATELY--but here I am, giving you second-person pronouns, resurrecting my dusty, barely-used blog from almost six years ago, and moping about alternately self-reflecting and panic-packing.

You were the last large, tangible thing tying me to New York, though, Escort. Unless you count the dog. Everything else here, save for mementos, incidentals, and the like, is something I've acquired in the two-and-a-half years I've been in Seattle. All of my furniture. Most of my clothing. Probably almost half my books. I still cling desperately, sometimes, to the few objects I have that simply touching or glancing at evokes a reminder of someone or someplace back home.

For the last few months, it's felt like everything is upside-down and a mess, like constantly walking into a room that's just been ransacked. The problem's been that this feeling seems to span my work life, any time spent inside my head, and even my actual spaces at home. Nothing feels like it's in the right place, literally or figuratively, except for fleeting moments. A huge portion of that, I imagine, was coming to terms with withdrawing from various social circles to varying degrees (a good thing, in these cases), and finding a friend whose brain seems to work exactly like mine sometimes, only to bid her farewell to another part of the country to make a better life for herself. This weekend, while I'm in Boston, my brother is moving back to New York, severing what feels like the last concrete tie I had to the area, though I still count close friends among those I've met here.

Sometimes it feels like I've just managed to mostly trick myself on occasion into feeling settled and at home here in Seattle. I don't know for sure what the rest of this year will hold, though things are already changing. If there's one cheesy thing I can find from New York to cling to, and bolster my confidence in the interim, it's the state motto: Excelsior.