This 30-day trip made sense in my head, but it's been hard on my body. California is home, the people who make me feel at home are all here, and I need to be here at the end of September and mid-October for a week each time. Figured I may as well stay the whole month instead of burning two days on interstitial cross-country flights.
I'm good at living out of a suitcase, I guess, but I've done it more this year than ever before. I rang in the new year in New York before taking an early morning train to DC and walking right into work with my suitcase. I was home in Chicago the day after Valentine's Day, and from there I flew to LA to co-host the 10-year reunion for my college club, to celebrate my cousin's birthday, to see my favorite people. Back to Chicago, apparently, which I didn't remember until checking my photos from March. Four weeks later I was in Maryland for work. Four days after that, I was in Los Altos with my dear friend and her mom, ironing my suit to witness my Molly's marriage at City Hall. I spent two nights in Sea Ranch for a hen weekend. Three nights in San Francisco before making my way back down to LA to celebrate several birthdays, including mine. I went directly to Austin from there for a wedding and a film festival. I finally came back to DC in the last days of April. I spent this period of time serially hosting people at my apartment: my mom and my sister, two friends from San Francisco, my cousin, my friends who were there on tour. I started going on long walks to clear my mind. My cyst ruptured one month into being home, and I spent the entire next month in a stupor. Brain fog, bodily fatigue, bloating, ghost pain or real pain, not sure. Bad things, slow things. I can't remember this period well. But then I was flying to Ireland for the wedding! My family visited and took me down to Northern Virginia. A week later, I was in New York. A week after that, Chicago again.
It's funny doing all of this math. The longest amount of time I've spent in anywhere this year was the 65 days I spent in DC where people were visiting left and right and I ended up in the hospital, but it doesn't feel like I was there at all.
