Februaries

This is not the life I expected. Februaries are always that way, though.

A year ago this month, I had given notice at my madcap Publicity-Events-Branding-AnythingUnderTheSun job to try working for a big national consumer-corporate PR firm. It was incredibly stressful, those final two weeks, working for a woman who was one of my closest friends, both of us knowing full-well that, after three years of insane workplace intimacy, I would be leaving in a handful of days.

Two years ago this month, I was about to take off for Mexico with my boyfriend at the time. The relationship was rocky, in large part because I continually put my job and my relationship up against each other. I pretended acting promiscuous was a job requirement. It wasn't. I thought being employed and in a relationship freed me up from any honest self-inquiry. Oh well.

Three years ago this month, I broke up with my first New York boyfriend. I was a year into my PR career and it was going pretty well. He had been a freelancer at the tiny boutique firm. He had always wondered when I would quit. Who knew it would take another two years?

Four years ago this month, I had just quit at my job at ABC News Radio. I was living in Williamsburg and I had nothing much to do but interview at temp agencies, hear how vastly overqualified I was (Really? With just 6 months work experience ever?), and wait for the plane ticket home. I had no idea what I was doing with myself. I waited to hear back from MFA programs and watched too much Oprah.

Five years ago this month, I was a senior in college. I was working on a series of form poems about location, and another chapbook about the orbits we throw ourselves into when we fall in and out of love. I was curious what I would do after May, but not afraid. Life would fall into place, I just knew it.

And it does. It did. It falls into place again and again just like those little orbits I was writing about five years ago. The planets shift and we realign, but soon we're settled back into our circles. Until the next time.

This is not the life I expected.

And there is nothing wrong with that.