1/13/08
Katrina was here the past two days and she put me entirely back on balance. Or at least reminded me of where my balance truly is. She didn’t indulge my stupid worrying about Alene or that the “the magic” has snapped cold between me and Mathias--she simply told me that I was being ridiculous, which I was. She listened to the fact that I’m still mixed up about everything that happened with Stephen and says, “as long as you remember that he is a very confused person”--confused meaning dangerous, meaningful hurtful, confused meaning not worthy of any more glances over my shoulder. It’s Katrina, who used to seem so afraid of life, who is making me move to New York in August because I seem to have misplaced my guts and keep getting scared and overwhelmed because life seems so unsteady right now. It’s Katrina who helped me realize why I feel so unsteady right now--because of the stress of money, because of the lack of work, but mostly because I have not written for a couple of weeks--nothing. So I have all these doors shutting in my face no sense of looming, brewing possibility.

1/18/08
“Ooh, it feels good to be free..”
Living back in Beacon Hill, near the end of Charles and the line of shops and stores on Cambridge Street, only vaguely familiar before now, has somewhat tricked me into feeling like I’m living in a different city. It’s a part of Boston that isn’t pockmarked with memories and ghosts.
It’s so easy to get sucked into a life of distraction. So easy to choose wander and wonder and spend and loop so far away from where you actually want to be, from what’s truly satisfying. And so often now I find myself choosing what is harder, less glamorous because I know it will get me to where I need to be. More and more I realize how much it’s those little daily choices that not only create the “big” choices but also, in reality, supercede them.
This morning I woke up a little earlier and curved up Charles street in the morning rain to where Mathias was working in Vanille, the cafe quiet and him behind the glass cases of croissants and petite fours in a maroon plaid shirt. When he saw me come in his face broke into this smile that made my heart quicken and we leaned over the counter, faces close and talking quietly. He made me a cappuccino and asked when I got off of work--could he bring over Band of Outsiders for us to watch? He walked me to the door and kissed me lightly, shyly, because we’re still so shy with such open and obvious affection for each other and all day since then I’ve just been… buoyant. So happy to start my day with that kiss, that smile… life just feeling so manageable and auspicious.
For days, easily for a couple of weeks, I’ve been going through this feeling of doors closing all around me. Feeling flattened and constricted and literally just trapped in this dead end life. My mind had turned so negative and every moment was stressing about work, about money, about writing…
I think it was a little bit having Katrina here last weekend that began to make me realize something had to change--because she makes me feel so balanced, because she so palpably reminds me of the writer I want to be, the writer life I want to have… and when she left I just felt so deflated again after a day of such inspiration--the Egyptian wing at the MFA, the show at the BCA…
But strangely enough it was Ani that made it all click so distinctly into place. Ani, who I’d written so far out of my life and who when I saw her for the first time on Tuesday night seemed so utterly foreign. We ended up having coffee at L’Aroma on Wednesday and it all just crystallized, why it was so fucking hard to see her--because around her I can’t pretend that last awful year didn’t happen. I have to remember all that terrible pain from Stephen. I have to remember the abortion, acknowledge it and feel it--that Stephen and I created a child and got rid of it and then he went back to Los Angeles and became a person I did not know and cut me out of his life. I knew what I had to do and I know I made the right decision for that point in my life but sometimes now I think of it and I just… can’t stop crying. Because I can’t believe I went through all of that and pretended it wasn’t happening and didn’t let myself feel it. The last time Stephen and I made love…
And I realized that the reason I have literally stopped talking to Ani is because on some level I assumed that, like Stephen, she would go to LA and completely change and want nothing to do with me, would want to pretend I never existed. It is so difficult for me to talk to her and acknowledge how much her life has changed and evolved, metamorphosized, how much she’s grown… and that I’m still here. Still the same. But why was I ending a friendship instead of taking a leap with my life?
“You need to get out of Boston before you hate it,” she said--true Ani fashion, her randomly perceptive comments. “You’re still so young,” she said. “You’re still allowed to be dependent on other people.”
Staying in Boston began as an opportunity for job security and to write and now it has ceased to be either.
Boston was once the only place I wanted to live and it will always be an important, beautiful city to me--because it’s where I truly decided to become a writer, where I fell in love for the first time.
But I have completely, fully outgrown it--I am not that girl anymore. I’m not eighteen, I’m committed to being a writer, I’m so far past the naivete of first love… and I need a city that matches me in scope and possibility.
I need New York. And I have to take the risk and leap (when did I stop doing that with my life?) and stop waiting for it to come to me.
So I decided--June 1.
I told mom and she was incredibly supportive--”leap!” she urged me. I told Katrina that I’d be there and she was thrilled.
I am going to leap--I’m moving. Because I can’t grow here anymore and it’s starting to make me miserable.
I’m going to leap and make all those things for this year happen--Juilliard and a fulltime, constant job and my apartment with Katrina and productions of my plays and Katrina and me and our writing at the center of it all.

Things to do NOW (Wednesday):

Email Ashley
Lincoln Center job(s)
Plan Kingson job/goals
How to not get too far from writing…

5/01/08
Boston is so beautiful today. It reminds me of why I’ve been able to stay here for over four years. Because on a day like today and on Charles Street, Boston feels like this perfect, lovely European city--a place I’d be content to stay even longer if it wasn’t that the feeling of perfection and contentment are more from the weather and the leisurely afternoon than from the city itself.
It has been almost a year since I graduated and I am absolutely no clearer on what I am here to do… where I am supposed to be… I still feel so lost in so many respects, extremely humbled by the reality of life after school. But I am determined to move to New York this month because I am going to break this “curse” hanging around my head and finally put a much-needed end to all the lives I’ve led in Boston. I’m just sort of this ghost here. I’m a girl who could be a writer, who could love Mathias, who could thrive within an adult world… but none of it is actually snapping into place.
Last time I was in New York, living there for the summer, I felt so much less than every other girl I saw--fatter, uglier, less composed, less intriguing, less stylish. I fell into this trap of comparing myself to any other person I could see.
I don’t think New York is it for me, but it is where I am going to go and establish myself as a writer and thrive as a young woman. As an adult.
I must remember that there is a whole world available to me, waiting for me, if I can just open my eyes and my heart.

5/6/08
Sitting on the outdoor patio of L’Aroma for the first time this spring. I’ve sat here a hundred times, in a hundred different ways, and yet the memories have lost any density. That’s how I feel about all of Boston now.
Reading Spring Awakening after the season announcement last night reminded me how deeply that show moved me, feeling curious about the original text. And because I still feel so curious and confused and benevolently overwhelmed by the most fundamental parts of life. Plagued by many of the same questions that filled my head last spring--about purpose, about direction, about love… trying so hard to understand it all.
Fell asleep with my head in Mathias’s lap last night as he watched Atonement. Woke up this morning in his slender bed and he immediately pulled me flush against him and the words almost spilled out of my mouth before I could stop myself and even in my haze of sleep I was sort of surprised that the words were being pushed to my lips before I’ve even metabolized their meaning and if it’s something I’m truly feeling.
I’m trying to be more open to him because in the most appalling way I can see that I was holding out for Stephen… and now the thought of him is like this terrible feeling of sickness that rushes through me. I can’t actually believe it’s me that went through those two and a half years with him. I was so meticulously maintaining this insulation around myself. And I finally became exhausted by the effort of not just letting it be.
He does everything right, Mathias, and is so free and open to life, so fully present, so void of drama or angst. He holds me, touches me, brushes back my hair in this way that just… overwhelms me, incredibly. And I keep being surprised by how life seems to be keeping him in my proximity, so foreign to me. All I ever knew was life--or Stephen--forcing love in the opposite direction from me.
It has taken me fully putting that life, those people, that version of myself in the past to be able to be fully present in this life, these people, this version of myself. And I think I’ve finally gotten there.
Last night I felt like New York had completely fallen apart, like it was never going to happen. But the door cracked open again today and I have to barge inside, remember why I wanted to move there, what I want to get, what I want to do, who I want to be.

05/12/08
In New York. A few minutes to spare before I have to leave for my first interview of the day. Chilly and rainy and everything bright, bright green.
My journal has momentarily lost its necessity, but still there is that desire to capture, preserve, protect. I wonder if my entire habit of journaling stems from a complete distrust of my own memory--not trusting that my life will fully imprint itself within.
Nearly five years in languid, botanical Boston has made me forget that ten years ago, New York was the only place I wanted to live--with all its chaos and vastness and instability. And feeling entirely out of place in Boston has made me remember how it is that I can feel at home in New York.
Reading the beginning of American Eve about how Evelyn Nesbit moved to New York with nothing but her looks. And it’s not looks for me but my writing and this firm belief that I belong here now.
God, I keep stopping recently and wondering why I’m just so full, so happy. The impending move? The promise of finally being somewhere I can belong, where I can lay down roots and relax and sink my teeth in.

06/01/2008
Everything happened so fast.
Leaving Boston a week earlier than planned, hopelessly looking for an apartment before suddenly finding our little home in Park Slope, moving in almost the next day, and then the next day my second interview with Pomegranate.
And now things have finally slowed down a bit--this awful, frustrating, depressing period of waiting. Waiting to hear from Pomegranate, waiting for the next time I’ll see Chris, waiting to actually feel like I’m living here and not hiding here. I’m stuck with this burning in my eyes, this headache, this exhaustion. I don’t know how to use my journal anymore. It has been so long and I’ve completely broken the habit, no longer needing the crutch to writing in here to “figure things out.” So busy living my life and not worrying about each detail and caveat. It has been so freeing and exhilarating. And yet, I need it right now, with Hillary and Kate on my last nerve (my fault, not theirs), Chris hours and cities away, waiting waiting waiting for Pomegranate so that my life in New York can have some sort of shape and definition, with literally $1.00 to my name and stress squeezing into every nook and cranny of my brain… I know how much I need my journal.
I miss Chris. I don’t want him to be in Boston for the summer and I don’t want him to move down south. I want him to stay in my arms and in my life.
I feel so wrong in my skin. Disheveled and messy and overweight and just not who I want to be. The t-shirts and jeans and flats that in Boston felt like an unstudied, casual sexiness, here feel messy and unflattering. Everything on me needs to be leaner, lighter, tighter, more feminine. My hair, longer. My clothes, just… different. I need to allow this transformation to happen even though I’m not quite sure what it is yet.
Hillary’s constant want to partying is making me feel pathetic, too quiet, too internalized. But I need to listen to myself and the fact that my gut is telling me this summer is quiet for me--to write again, to work on my body, new goals breaking through because I realized recently, quite startlingly, that the (hopefully) job offer from Pomegranate will be the final piece--all of my current goals will have been realized. Getting a dog, moving to New York, my writing career beginning to take off, being in a healthy, happy relationship… I will have achieved everything I was working for.
I’ve been so consumed for months with getting myself and my life here to this city. And it’s so close… the final piece just hovering and I’m waiting waiting waiting, terrified of the money I don’t have and everything I can’t do yet. And yet, in my gut I know the job at Pomegranate is mine and the stress is just impatience, my absolute reluctance to ask grandpa for help, knowing that so very very soon I’ll be able to take care of it myself.
And as soon as that offer meets my ears, the last piece of the puzzle will finally fall into place and the real challenge begins. The challenge of starting a new life, an adult life, of having to now go further, do more, become more.

June 23, Monday
I have literally been dying to write for days. For an entire week, actually. My ambivalence towards my journal my last few months in Boston seemed like maybe I’d grown out of it all which now, I see clearly, was completely absurd. I had just numbed to life in Boston. There was nothing to say. And then I came here…
It doesn’t mean as much a week later when the emotions and memories are dimmed but I had the most incredible with Mathias last week. A whim that I went to Boston at all and he was just so adoring, so happy to see me. We spent the most incredible Saturday together playing in Blackstone Park, walking around the parade, heated rooftop drinks at Rattlesnake and then just the two of us (so rare!) wandering the Brookline Booksmith (finding Ginsberg’s Indian Journal!) and see The Fall at Coolidge Cinema. This weekend was far more hectic. He’s been here three days (two?) and I feel like I haven’t seen him at all. Last night when I went to bed, sleeping against his shoulder as he read Nine Stories, I felt frustrated because I knew I’d been poor company to him. I don’t want to make all the same mistakes the second time around.
Today I felt a bit like I’m finally getting my stride, surprising considering the past week, a week where I felt so frantic, worn so thin, where I felt so completely ostracized by two of my dearest friends. Katrina seeming so angry and even manipulative. Hillary so utterly ridiculous. I moved to New York under the pretense that it was a shared, mutual experience and I was feeling so disoriented because I realized I am distinctly alone in my experience. But after the fighting (when do I ever fight with people? Stress making me crazy), the ridiculous feminine “talks”, after the exhaustion of the whole ordeal, I’ve emerged with this joy that this is my own experience. It is always my own experience. Instead of feeling frustrated—misunderstood, entirely—I feel so grateful that I am this year ahead of them, a year already out of school, already through that mess.
There are so many things I am dying to do but my time is consumed with work, with the intangibility of “adjusting” and a multitude of new goals and desires have flooded into my consciousness. Needing to write in the morning because it will be the only opportunity I have and watching two unproductive weeks pass me by has killed me. I’m going to start small, gently. 20 extra minutes this week to write.
So many things I want to see—Rabbit & Rogue, reasons to be pretty, wanting to run. But when? Work and LIFE are consuming, so when do I write? There simply isn’t time for everything.
Waiting for Chris at the Starbucks on 14th and 6th. Chris, who despite all the change has remained incredibly similar and consistent from my vantage point. He’s realized that a summer in Boston makes no sense and is moving to New York in a few weeks (how utterly opposite of Stephen) and will be living with me until the end of the summer. Didn’t think I’d be living with someone this young (does less than two months even count?) and certainly never thought it would be Chris.

Jan ? June 26, 2008
Very early/up late
1. I am extremely exhausted. I planned to go to bed at 10. It is now 12:30.
2. I deeply miss my long hair.
3. I deeply miss Christopher.
4. I haven’t been hungry for anything for days but tonight I made pancakes.
5. I was offered a promotion today.
6. All I want to do this weekend is sleep in, read, tan on the balcony, wear something unexpected, go to the Botanical Gardens, and take lots of photographs.
7. I am searching for a new way to express myself, to journal… I haven’t figured it out yet. Everything is shifting in me.
8. I didn’t get into Juilliard.
9. My roommates are bugging me.
10. I wish I had more time with Archie.

June 27, 2008, Friday
It is full summer—hot, sweaty, sticky, so bright. My life is just kind of… happening. Happening almost without my presence.

June 29, 2008, 1:14am
Not sure who I am in this vast, circuitous city. Even less sure who I’m becoming. Just these intense instincts and emotions and desires.
Sufjan Stevens and candle light and Dusty and Hillary in the next room and Archie curled close and my mind buzzing from lines, feeling it really for the first time since my birthday, possibly ever. Just feeling so awake, like my eyes and my heart and my mind have opened so wide, like I’m able to take in more of the world than I’ve ever seen before… feeling every nerve, each cell in my brain, every minor emotion pulsating in my heart, wanting to lay flat and quiet and just take it all in…. this new world, this new life, this new self that is trying so desperately to communicate with me—to explain to me who I am supposed to be, become, WHO I AM NOW.

The Writers Studio T/W $435 (begins late September)
Gotham Adv. Fiction about $400, dates?
New School classes
Craigslist—photography?

June 29
Tonight I sat out on the balcony talking to mom and all these thoughts about writing that have been bottled up in my head just spilled out, this flood of thoughts and concerns and questions that, for whatever reason, Juilliard sent toppling around in my mind. Remembering quotes from Mamet about the utter absurdity of grad school and how young writers today are terrible because they have nothing to write about except twenty years of being in school. Writing has felt like a job to me since my senior year of high school. I also decided that year that I was “supposed” be a playwright. It’s all such bullshit.
So many instincts right now, instincts that are thick and persuasive and therefore I’m taking them to heart. Instincts to explore, discover, define. Instincts to read read read, instincts for Spain, instincts towards photography. And most of all the instinct to put writing aside for now. Writing has become a chore, with no basis of joy or creativity, just something to put on my resume and it’s too impossible. I know I am a writer, here to write, but for now, this new life in New York and this need for self-exploration has taken precedence. No more “real” writing. It’s in my journal or nothing and only when I truly want to. I’ve been forcing myself to be “a writer” and completely lost any sense of my natural self as a writer. It’s time to take my head out of the equation, reserve it for work and reading. The rest of my life… instinct, questioning, exploring, compassion… room to breathe and to be and to let my life happen to me instead of forcing it to come when I call its name.