settling in

note: i began to draft this post back in october 2012 and am just getting around to finishing it (maybe) now.

it's just about 6 months ago now that i packed up my prius for the last time (on the west coast, anyway) and jumped onto i-80. durham was about 2,900 miles away, and i planned stops in western utah; aurora, colorado (more on that in a moment); western missouri; and lexington, kentucky, before pulling up to my destination.

the first two days were pretty dreary. the weather was good and the scenery was beautiful, but i'd met - or, more accurately, gotten better acquainted with - someone in san francisco about two months before i left. (i've always been known for my impeccable timing.) we'd packed a lot of "getting to know you better" time into those two months, and i'd even considered staying in san francisco. she'd asked me to, and i was very unhappy to have to say no. but i had a plan, for the first time in many years, and i was terrified of anything or anyone steering me off course.

still, that made for a long couple of days. i wanted to make it to aurora, where i'd be taking a break and staying with friends, in two days, so it was about nine hours in the car each day. i invested in a sirius radio dock and tried to drown my sorrows by singing 80's music at the top of my lungs, with varying degrees of success (singing, and drowning my sorrows).

i arrived in aurora on thursday, july 19th, in the late afternoon. it was 100 degrees, and i was happy to jump in my friends' pool, drink a cold beer, and socialize with the other people they had over. (people in their neighborhood have come to look for a bright pink beach towel slung over their fence, which constitutes an open invitation to come and swim.) it was a lovely day and evening.

the next morning, we were having breakfast when the phone rang. it was my friend's broker, calling from virginia to "see if you're ok." she chuckled at first, confused, and then the color drained from her face as he continued. she rushed off the phone and over to the tv, and that was the first we heard about the mass shooting that had taken place just a few miles down the road. it was about 9 hours after it happened.

the strangeness of it all was hard to take in, from the clownish appearance of the suspect to the sheer coincidence that i was in the immediate area when it happened.

(now, january 2013 ...)

it didn't stop there. in august, six people were gunned down at a sikh temple in wisconsin. in december, a mere eleven days before christmas, 26 people at an elementary school (20 of them children) were killed with a rifle by 20-year-old adam lanza, who also killed his mother, a gun enthusiast. and just today, a gunman in arizona opened fire at an office building in phoenix, wounding six people, one of whom died from his injuries. as i write this, amazingly, that suspect remains at large.

this blog isn't a diatribe against gun violence - but still, i stand in strong support of gun control. i don't need an outright ban, and i have to be realistic that that's not going to happen anyway. what i ask is for our elected officials to acknowledge that 2012 was a record year for gun violence (here's an excellent article from Mother Jones posted just today). the most notable point for me is that the majority of mass shooters have a history of mental illness that has been identified in the past. frankly, it makes me wonder if i'd be able to pass a background check to get a gun. if you've read other entries in this blog, you know that i have a history of clinical depression that goes back 20+ years, and although i've been treated continually for most of that time, it's been that long since i've been hospitalized for it.

then again, not a single mass shooter in history has been female. as for more guns in schools? not a single mass shooter has ever been stopped by an armed civilian. just sayin'.

i digress.

when i logged on tonight, i'd forgotten that i'd even begun this entry, as it had been a good long time. i've now been in my new home - durham, north carolina - for six months, and living in a little house for nearly four. i love it, my dog loves it. turns out we're both country(ish) mice, not city mice, which i'd suspected for a long time. we live near a large park where we walk several times a day. there are certain things to get used to, like not rolling out of bed and walking to the grocery store or the corner store or stumbling to a cafe half-awake to get a cup of coffee. i've adjusted. it's not always been easy. being in a long-distance relationship is challenging, gchat and the phone notwithstanding.

i can't do durham justice in a few sentences, so i'll save that for another entry. since i arrived here to go to school 25 years ago this month, though, downtown has undergone a revitalization that is surprising and delightful. there are cafes, restaurants that rival some in san francisco (in quality if not in number), galleries, and the wonderful durham performing arts center (DPAC), which attracts the likes of David Sedaris (a native north carolinian), Lily Tomlin, Whoopi Goldberg, and broadway shows like jersey boys. the stunning Duke gardens are still an awesome place to take a stroll, east campus a great place to jog.

even more importantly from my standpoint, however, is the number and quality of state graduate programs here. my focus has shifted somewhat from when i first started this blog: instead of pursuing a masters in family therapy, i decided to go for a masters in social work. as of now, my applications are complete and i'm waiting for decisions, which will take another 3-6 weeks at least. in the meantime, i've been occupying myself with volunteer work. two days a week, i tutor young adults to prepared them to take the GED exam; my legal training has finally come to some real use for a county teen court program, which provides an alternative justice model for first-time offenders; and finally, next week i begin training to be a hospital responder for the durham crisis response center, which deals with rape and domestic violence. i'm so happy, and feel so fortunate, to have the opportunity to do this sort of work in the near term. and i feel more fulfilled than i have in years. finally, i might just be on the right track. what a feeling that is.