Asheville, of course

 

The thing about depression is that it interrupts a lot of things. As Glennon Doyle once said, anxiety makes me miss my whole life. Depression makes me miserable through whatever is left. It's not great. It's also very annoying when I had been looking forward to something for so long, only for it to arrive during a "no bones day." (aka a day when my depression is making everything hard and exhausting).

That's how I felt in Asheville this past weekend. I had been looking forward to traveling there with Levent for weeks. And then we get there and I could not get out of my head. (And I just wanted to nap the whole time).

Let me back up. Levent's BFF Jason and his family live in Hendersonville, which is close to Asheville (where my parents lives). Several weeks ago, Sarah (Jason's wife) reached out to Levent and asked if he wanted to come out there to surprise Jason for his birthday. Naturally Levent was going to go and naturally I was going to insert myself into this so I could go to Asheville - maybe my favorite place in the whole country.

The surprise worked out great. We got there Friday evening. Sarah picked us up from the airport and we successfully surprised Jason when we showed up to Haywood Commons (in West Asheville) to join his birthday dinner.

chicken and waffles (which was bangin btw)

From there, Levent went with Jason and Sarah back to Hendersonville while I went to my parents house for the weekend. Looking back, it was a really enjoyable weekend. Mom and I drank all the coffee and went shopping in downtown Asheville. My parents and I went to Red Ginger to celebrate a very belated birthday dinner for my dad and an early one for my mom. We of course ate ice cream, went on a nature walk and chilled at home watching the olympics.

On Sunday night, I went over the Hendersonville to hang out with Jason and Sarah and eat tacos and ice cream. I brought Levent back to my parents house then afterwards and we left the next day. (After having brunch at Sunny point. Another of course we did).

See? These were all enjoying thing. So why was I in a weird funk for most of it? (Well, mental health naturally). That's so annoying. 

The main thing I kept coming back to in my mind is that Asheville makes me feel so many feelings. Trying to process all but trying to be in the moment and enjoy myself is a hard combination. 

It really boils down to this - I want to live in Asheville. But I feel like I missed the window in my life when this was an actual possibility. I did live there for a few months after collage and then again after I got back from South Africa. And there is an alternative timeline in my life where I didn't move out to Kansas to hang out with my sister for awhile. This timeline is the one where I just stayed in Asheville. I wonder about these alternate timelines occasionally. Like the one mentioned above, but as well as the one where I stayed in Chicago after cooking for DOOR for a summer, or the one where I took the bakery job in Nashville. I don't dwell on these for obvious reasons but sometimes it crosses my mind. What would've happened?

I could've stayed in Asheville. I could've tried harder to get a job (during the fall out of the 08 recession mind you, which is why I didn't get a job there in the first place though I did apply at a few places). But if I did that, I wouldn't have met Levent and that would be a tragedy. I was also miserable in my early 20s. Being in Asheville was hard. I missed my home in Illinois. I missed my home at Bluffton. I was recovering from a very hard year in South Africa. Looking back on that time, of course, feels shiny. I was unemployed so I just hung out on my parents porch, read Agatha Christie novels all day and went to the farmers markets and Shakespeare plays on the weekends. In hindsight, it was only a few months, so, of course it seems glorious now, when in reality, I felt super lost and a drift. Which is why when my sister said, come to Kansas, I went.

Since 2010, the cost of living in Asheville (which was always expensive) and shot up. That is especially true now during this crazy cost of housing we're seeing during the pandemic. We can't afford to live there. That felt like a punch to the heart when I realized that. My beautiful, weird Asheville. Everyone wants to live there, of course.

So what does that mean for Levent and me now? Who knows. We know we don't want to be in Kansas forever (although I am definitely more antsy than he is). But I thought Asheville would make the most sense. Columbus and Harrisonburg are also on the table (kind of) but both of those places don't really seem to fit. Now what? I told Levent when we were sitting in AVL waiting for our plane that I felt untethered. (This was not the right analogy since i really meant a drift. Or more like I was a kite that was lost in the air). I love to feel as if I belong to a place. I miss the feeling of having a home where I can put down roots deep into the earth. I haven't felt that since my parents moved and I realized that I desperately miss it. But what does that mean now for two nomadic millennials? I don't know. 

The only thing I know is that Levent is my home, even when I long for a physical place for us that's not Kansas. We'll figure this out together. I just wish we had some coordinates to head to.