The Siren’s New Clothes

Dress torn in ribbons and in bows
Like a siren she calls to me
Sleep comes like a drug
In god’s country.

U2

 

It isn’t the stars pulling my hair. It’s the ocean.

I want to go home.

 

I started packing January 17^th.

And as with every other January in the history of Januarys that was approximately 3 and a half years ago.

I got over my post vacation depression, did my Mexican laundry and packed all my favorite summer things right away. It was the only way to get through it.

I have been shopping three times. Twice with my girl’s, to our favorite places, Value Village, Plato’s Closet and once alone at Target. Panda left me alone at target, came home with waaaaay too much stuff.

I have been living out of a bag and a laundry basket for 3 weeks now. I forget how to dress cute.

Everything staying went to storage a week ago.

And I still have one more drop off trip.

Yesterday it rained and we braved the weather for a mediocre brunch. Pink Starfish drove me home and I explained that although I love them, I can’t be here anymore.

I have to go home.

I fast forwarded my trip by a week. Got sick and bed bound for 2 days after seeing the Giant through the worst of his sickness.

It’s out barbecued steak in -30 C anniversary today.

I think I fell in love with him that day. I don’t think, I know.

It’s our goodbye breakfast tomorrow. And I have nothing to wear.

He won’t care. He has seen me crying on the floor and in my drunken stripper glory, boujee as fuck and in sweat pants.

I was scrolling through Instagram this morning looking for pics to post for my new job.

A bar beyond appropriately named Sirens.

I am a mermaid.

I know this now.

Maybe some kind of fairy siren hybrid. But the water. That vast expanse of blue and salt.

It’s pulling me.

I have decided to reinvent myself.

I don’t want to be the girl who lives in sweatpants for days on end. It is time to be cute and get back out into the world.

Fake it till I make it.

As I scrolled I saw photographic proof of Mexico, and the Caribbean blue my eyes became. I saw the end of November at Giant’s house covered in kittens. I saw Florida and remembered the idea I had about ‘how much of my life can I fit in a suitcase, and can I live like this? One room, one closet, 5% of my things.’

And the answer was yes.

If I was near the water, absolutely yes.

The only fear I have left is ‘am I going to be able to jam all this stuff in my car with room for the dog’. And a little concern about the last leg of the journey. 9 hours through a very long highway with nothing but trees and adorably named towns here and there.

But I am my father’s daughter in these moments.

He loves to drive, and spent years packing 4 girl’s worth of stuff into varying vehicles for road trip after road trip. I learned from the best.

I am following a predicted high pressure system. Sunshine and clear skies almost all the way.

Then, finally, after sacrifice…

Unpacking all these treasures I have been denying myself, shedding my old skin…

And becoming a new me.