Entering year 27.

One year, one month, two weeks, and five days later, I find myself in a very different place than when I first came down here.

When I moved to Baltimore, I was still suffering the repercussions of Apple. I felt like I didn’t know who I was, what I wanted, and was just grateful to have finally been given an opportunity to leave New Jersey. I didn’t know anyone, but I was okay with that, because I figured compared to the people I had met in the last two years, with very few exceptions, I could only go up.

It took me a month to get situated, to develop a routine with the gym, the library, and my job. I had to move my bed a few times and reorganize my closet and drawers several times before I felt like it was really my home. I made my first friend through work, a fellow Northerner who had also moved south for her job. I met more people through my roommates, and then even more when I started playing football. I discovered I had latent football skills that translated to being able to catch a ball when thrown in my direction. I suddenly found myself going out every weekend, to a bar, to a house, just being out there and meeting more and more people. And suddenly, I had a life in Baltimore.

I still had my friendships of old and my family, but they were just a bit further distanced. For the first time in a long time, I felt content, like I had a future even if I did not know where it was going to go. I was more concerned with doing well in my job, ensuring that what happened in Berkeley didn’t happen here.

I wanted more. Now that I had finally figured out how to balance life and work, I wanted love too. It only took one date to know G was someone special, but it has been a slow progression of getting to know each other and how we fit in each others’ lives over the last five and a half months. Slow is good though; it means we figure out how to talk to one another, to let each other know when we are frustrated, and how to balance our other commitments and desires with our relationship together. He moved to Baltimore in May from DC and now lives fifteen blocks away from me, which has changed our dynamics considerably. We went from alternating weekends based on my work schedule, so one weekend would be in DC and one would be in Baltimore. Now with both of us in Baltimore, what I originally thought would be easier became more complicated: we can split up more easily, but at the same time, coordinating meeting up can be more difficult. There are two homes to go to instead of defaulting to whomever’s city we were in that weekend. But we are learning.

Meanwhile, I have also been thinking about where I want to go with my future. While I love my job, I have been growing frustrated with the number of weekends I have had to miss out on because I work so many of them. Working nights and weekends, while a considerable step up from where I was with Apple, is not entirely the way I want to go with my career. I love the student services aspect of my job, but I find myself wishing that there were some days where I could go to work during normal operating hours and have the nights free to socialize, spend time with G, spend time being a lazy bum on my couch. I also feel as though there is a general resistance to change and an attitude of don’t fix it if it ain’t broken, which makes things further complicated. Basically, I know this is a situation that will need to change for me to remain happy with where I am.

But I’ve discovered something new; once you’ve said “I love you,” a thousand doors open that were previously closed. All the things I never believed were possible for me suddenly are. Someone loves me. Someone wants to be with me, and I want to be with him too. What this means for our future together, I don’t know, but right now, anything is possible. That’s terrifying in one way, because it means the potential of getting hurt is that much greater. But on the other hand, the potential for so much more happiness is also that much greater.

I know that by the end of this year, I want to have a better idea of what my options are. If I want to stay with my current office, I would need to transfer down to the main campus near DC – and I do, because I love my colleagues and I love the work I do, but I want more of a challenge than I currently have. If I transfer to the main campus, that means leaving Baltimore, a city I have come to love and has done so much for me in restoring my happiness and vitality. My other option is to consider looking at another university within the Baltimore area (and there are many), but leaving my current university and potentially the great benefits I receive from the state due to its nature as a public institution.

This is where the love question comes into play: just because G is in Baltimore now doesn’t mean he necessarily wants to stay in Baltimore; the commute for him is horrendous because the public transit system around here is nowhere near as evolved as the one surrounding New York City. Furthermore, his career path is better served by DC than it is Baltimore, while mine is far more flexible as all I require is an institution of higher education. If our paths continue to follow the same direction, as they have been and I hope they do, there is more than just me to consider in this decision. Suddenly, what seemed like a simple decision feels far more complex process because there are so many more factors to take into play. The one absolute is that I have to make these decisions within the next year, and find a new job in the process because I have a lease to consider as well.

I struggle with wondering if I am losing my autonomy by being in a relationship, and feeling as though I need to take another person into consideration in decisions that have always just been about me. As this is a first for me on all factors (seeing as my previous relationship history involves not knowing I was in one, or a long-distance relationship that was on and off, or a mentally abusive high school relationship, I don’t have a great track record), I am trying to make sure that I am still me, but a me that shares her heart with a man she loves. It seems that one day after turning twenty seven, I am beginning to learn what it means to be a grown up. But in all honesty? I’m excited. I’m excited to see what the future holds, what my twenty-seventh year will bring, and just how much more growing there is to do.

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