[I wrote this at the end of July, but couldn’t post it until now, for fear of giving too much away and sharing news that I wasn’t supposed to share just yet. But the sentiments expressed still hold true. Even more so.]

It’s been hot in Boston for three weeks and counting. Humid and sticky and hot. For those of you who live in the South or the Midwest, three weeks is nothing. Three weeks is a walk in the park, a breeze, a we-wish scenario.

But up here in the Northeast, we’re not accustomed to it. Typically, our heat wave, if we have one, comes later—in August. And it lasts for about two weeks, tops. So we’re not prepared for this, not equipped. Boston’s buildings are old; central air is a foreign concept, a new-fangled technology that we’ve stubbornly resisted.

During Week One, people grumbled and groaned. As a city, we were lethargic and agitated. Everyone was tired. In a bad mood. People snapped at one another on the train. Bosses yelled at their employees. Children threw more tantrums in the supermarket.

As we entered Week Two, we complained. We wondered when the heat would let up, because surely it had to end soon, right? We made comments about global warming and saw a lot of movies to stay cool.

By Week Three, we had stopped our bitching and moaning. We resigned ourselves to the weather, to the high energy bills we’d pay as we overworked our AC window units. We took cold showers and sat in front of fans. The heat, it seemed, was here to stay. So we adapted. We hoped for a break, for a burst of low temperatures, but we expected heat. It had seeped into our lives, and we had no choice but to make the best of it.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I stepped out of my apartment this morning at 5:45 a.m. in a T-shirt and shorts, something I’ve done almost every day for the last two weeks, and felt cool air on my skin. I stood on the porch for a second or two, trying to decide whether or not I needed a sweatshirt. A sweatshirt.

I was dumbfounded. I got into my car and rolled down my window for the first time in three weeks, maybe more. I couldn’t believe my good fortune. I wanted to kiss the air.

This year has been a tough one, for many reasons, for many of my loved ones and for me. It’s been the kind of year that makes you want to give up, to let go of whatever it is you’re hoping for; the kind of year that kicks you when you’re down, then kicks you one more time, for good measure.

Though I’ve always been the type of person who braces herself for bad things to happen, falling into a pit of depression and despair when they do, this year has been different. I’ve felt different. I haven’t had time for despair, haven’t had the luxury of sitting on my couch for days or weeks, eating boxes of Fudgesicles while watching Friends re-runs to ease my anxiety and numb my pain. Too many scary things have happened, and too many scary things might happen. The stakes are higher, and I’ve had no choice but to keep moving. To adapt. To hope for good things, but to expect the bad.

What I’m trying to say is: you get used to it, the heat, the way things currently are. And at some point, you stop thinking that they’ll be any different, any better. It isn’t hopelessness, or acceptance. It’s survival.

So when something does change—big or small—when something remarkable happens, when what you’re used to is turned on its head, and you’re presented with something you’ve wanted and hoped for, something you had started to think you’d never get, it’s terror-inducing. The fear is real and big and overwhelming, but so, too, is the joy.

I’m not sure if I believe in a higher power. I know that many people turn to faith or God or whomever in times of great need and sorrow, that they find comfort there. I don’t. I can count the number of times I’ve prayed—out of abject desperation—on two hands; some of my prayers have been answered, some haven’t.

Odd as it may be, it’s when good things, remarkable things happen—the heat wave breaks, the losing streak ends, the year of just getting by takes an unexpected turn—that I wish I was a true believer. I wish I believed because then I would have someone to thank. Today, my gratitude is immense, and if I believed, I would get down on my knees and say thank you. I would say it all day and all night, all week or all month; I would say it over and over again and wouldn’t stop until I believed it—until I believed my good fortune.

And then I’d say it one more time, for good measure.

Before I moved to Boston five years ago, I lived in a glorified studio in Alexandria, Virginia. While I’d love to wax nostalgic about the modest, cave-like hovel that I called home for three years and confess that, in hindsight, I really loved it, I can’t. The truth is, I hated that apartment.

Part of my hate had to do with the apartment itself (in particular its low ceilings, ratty carpeting, and the fact that you had to walk through the bedroom closet to get to the bathroom); part of it had to do with the management company that owned it (run by a boozy alcoholic and staffed by a mean, burnt-out security guard and three people who collectively spoke three words of English); and part of it had to do with where I was in my life at the time (working a job that bored me and dating a boy who lived very far away, one who later dumped me and sent me spiraling into a depressed, comatose oblivion). Regardless of the reasons, I hated my home and, by extension, hated my life.

Two months before my move, when I came to Boston for a three-day apartment search, I knew one thing and one thing only: I wanted to love my apartment. I wanted rooms! I wanted hardwood floors! I wanted to be able to invite people over without feeling shame and embarrassment! I arrived in town, rented a car, and, using an actual printed atlas, drove around the unknown city, meeting realtors and viewing apartments.

Some were okay. Some were complete and total dumps. But when I got to my apartment, I just knew. I knew in the way that women in romantic comedies “just know” that they’ve met “the one.” Sunlight poured over the hardwood floors, casting a faint glow over everything in the apartment: high ceilings, an eat-in kitchen, three closets, and a hallway—hallway!—connecting the living room, kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom. While other prospective renters milled about the place, inspecting moldings and speaking to one another in low tones, I grabbed the current renter, shoved my checkbook in his face, and told him I’d take it.

I’ve spent the last five years in that impulse-buy. Like any long-term relationship, we’ve had our ups and downs. There were the mice incidents of ’05, ’06, and ’07, and the subsequent terror-induced out-of-body experiences. Parking is more or less an impossibility, and on many late-night occasions, I’ve fought the urge to drive my car into a brick wall. The dumpster out back attracts a certain kind of animal that scares me more than serial killers. My cupboards sag, my counters are covered in contact paper to conceal the nastiness underneath, the sound my toilet makes upon flushing could wake the dead, and my shower is, well, unique.

But, much like my affection for this ridiculous Bay State city, my love for my apartment has never wavered. It has been my home, my first true home since leaving the original one, with the mom and the dad and the brother, thirteen years ago.

This weekend, I’m moving. Into a bigger place in a better location with my best friends. I’m excited about this, excited to be moving forward with my life, excited to be living once again with people I consider to be my family. Just as my previous moves—from St. Louis to Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh to DC, and DC to Boston—set my life in motion, pushing me closer and closer to where I’m meant to be, this move has prompted a similar feeling: of possibility, potential, something good on the horizon. It is the right thing for me to be doing at this moment in time, and I know that with the certainty of a hundred romantic comedy morons.

Yet this week, as I’ve packed up my books and dishes and clothing, stripping my apartment of everything that made it a home, everything that made it mine, I haven’t been able to shake my blues.

When I graduated from college, my mom gave me a small decorative pillow that reads, “Home is where you make it.” Cheesy and cliché, yes. But the sentiment was exactly what I needed as I loaded my Subaru and left my hometown, and immediate family, for good.

The older I get, the truer that phrase becomes. Though place is important, it’s really the people in your life, the relationships that you have and the strength and power of those connections, that make a home.

As I say goodbye to the place that witnessed such pivotal years of my life—the years in which I became a writer and began what I’m sure will be a lifelong battle with the demons that hold me back—I am comforted by the fact that I will take my home with me, that my home will forever be where my family is, whether they’re across town or in the bedroom down the hall. My friends are my home, and though moving on and moving forward is, for me, always bittersweet, I honestly can’t wait to see where the next five years will take us.

My good friend and fellow writer Liz recently interviewed Nina Garcia. You know, the judge on a little TV show called Project Runway. Her interview resulted in not one, but two stellar articles:

“Nina Garcia’s 5 Quick Fashion Fixes for Moms”

“Nina Garcia’s Six Sophisticated Staples No Woman Should Live Without”

I know. My friends are pretty darn cool.

When I entered high school, I signed up to write for the school paper. I was assigned to the features section, and for a while, this suited me just fine. News could be boring, I reasoned. Feature articles would allow me to flex my creative muscles and write about real people and the things that were important to them. I am and always have been a human-interest kind of girl.

Every month, my editor would assign a topic, and at first, I loved it. I wrote about the “fun” stuff, wrote the articles that people would actually read—about Valentine’s Day and beloved childhood toys and the reasons that teenagers spent so much time on the phone.

But after a year or so, I was bored. I wrote my articles during my lunch period, an hour before they were due. I had mastered the features formula: catchy lede, set-up, quote, transition, quote, transition, quote, transition, quote, cute full-circle concluding sentence. And my assigned topics got dumber and more ridiculous. One of the last articles I wrote was about PDA. Public displays of affection. During a free period, I had wandered the halls of my school, interrupting couples mid-grope to ask them why. Why are you touching your girlfriend’s breast in the library?

So, when the newspaper advisor offered me an opportunity to write an op-ed, I jumped at the chance. Maybe this was my true calling! I thought. I would use my words to take a stand, to convince people that I was right and that they were wrong. My articles would have substance!

My assigned topic: homophobia. Was homophobia a problem in our school? The year was 1995: of course homophobia was a problem. I got to work, discussing the topic at length with my friends and teachers. And I listened. I listened as boys called one another “faggots” and passed judgment with “that’s so gay.” I asked my fellow students why they used these expressions and received some interesting answers. I poured my heart into that article, believing that it could open a dialogue and, in some very small way, actually make a difference.

But all of my hard work was for nothing. My advisor had wanted an op-ed that expressed her opinion, one that wouldn’t ruffle any feathers or include the “f” word. Re-write it, she told me, and argue the other side. In other words, my advisor wanted me to lie. Worse, she wanted me to compromise my entire belief system, the very core of my being, the kind of person I aspired to be.

I was enraged. I told her that I quit, and marched into my guidance counselor’s office, demanding that he drop me from the newspaper. I fought back tears as I explained what had happened.

“This is absolutely no problem,” he assured me. “You’re doing the right thing.”

As it so happened, my guidance counselor, in addition to being sympathetic and understanding, was gay.

That night, I told my mom that I had quit the newspaper. She had just walked through the door, and was distracted, sifting through the mail.

“What?” she said, whipping her head up to look at me. “Why?” She knew how important my journalistic aspirations were to me.

I broke down then. I had never quit anything in my life, and this had been my dream. More than anything, though, I was so disappointed. So disillusioned. How could the world work like this? How did people who cared as much as I did even stand a chance?

I cried and cried, and when I stopped, my mom told me that she was proud of me. For quitting? I asked. No, she said. For standing up for what you believe in.

Today is my 31st birthday. It’s much calmer, much more relaxed than 30 was. One might call it anticlimactic, but that implies a let-down of some kind, unfulfilled expectations, and I don’t feel that way. The nice thing about relaxed is that it allows you to contemplate your age, your life, and your accomplishments in a productive way.

I was reminded of the above story this past weekend, and thought that it was a fitting 31st birthday tale. People who have lived through their 30s often tell me that it’s the best decade, that you know yourself so much better and subsequently have an easier time of it, enjoy it more.

I may have given up on a childhood dream when I was 16, but at 31, I am thankful for that experience—and where it led me. I am thankful for the people who have shaped me, shaped my life, made it better.

As I move further and further into adulthood, I hope for many things. But mostly, I hope that I continue to be the kind of person who makes her mother proud.

Again, I think the title sums it up quite nicely. It’s never too late to get some action.

[Update 12.1.09: AlterNet re-printed (posted) my article.]

One of the challenges of writing memoir is that there are so many ways to tell a single story. So many different points of view (who will be the narrator?), so many slight variations on memory. I remember it one way, she remembers it a different way. Who’s to say which one is true?

All you can do is remain true to your own memory, and to tell the story, your story, the story of your family or friends, as truthfully as you remember it. As truthfully as you feel it.

In her novel, No One You Know, Michelle Richmond writes:

Every story is flawed, every story is subject to change. Even after it is set down in print, between the covers of a book, a story is not immune to alteration. People can go on telling it in their own way, remembering it the way they want. And in each telling the ending may change, or even the beginning. Inevitably, in some cases it will be worse, and in others it just might be better. A story, after all, does not only belong to the one who is telling it. It belongs, in equal measure, to the one who is listening.

As I begin to re-write my own memoir (soon? One day? Years from now? This week?), as I start over from the beginning, though the characters and setting and events will remain the same, the story could change. Hopefully (please? Pretty please?) for the better.

[Today I’m participating in a mass blogging. WOW! Women On Writing has gathered a group of blogging buddies to write about family relationships. Why family relationships? We’re celebrating the release of Therese Walsh’s debut novel today. The Last Will of Moira Leahy (Random House, October 13, 2009), is about a mysterious journey that helps a woman learn more about herself and her twin, whom she lost when they were teenagers. Visit The Muffin to read what Therese has to say about family relationships, and view the list of all my blogging buddies. And make sure you visit Therese’s website to find out more about the author.]

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A few years ago, my mom asked me if I thought we talked enough.

“Should we be talking more than we do?” she asked. “Ruth talks to Lisa almost every day,” she added, referring to her best friend and her best friend’s daughter.

“What?” I said, buying myself some time. Then, “No. I think we talk just the right amount, Mom.”

“You do?”

Though the content of our conversation was new, the feelings it provoked in me were not. When my mom asked questions like this, questions like, “Do you love your English teacher more than me?” she didn’t want honesty. She wanted me to tell her that I loved her most of all. That she was doing everything right. That she was a good mother.

She wanted reassurance.

“Yes,” I said. “If we wanted to talk more, we would.”

“We would?”

The dialogue continued in this vein until my mom concluded that Lisa had started talking to Ruth more when she became a mother herself. I made a mental note to expect this same conversation after the birth of my first child.

During a recent trip to St. Louis to see my parents, my mom and I attended a reading (ironically organized by my dad, who works for the library). I happened to be in town with Sue Monk Kidd and her daughter Ann Kidd Taylor, who, after co-authoring a travel memoir together, spoke at length about the mother/daughter relationship.

Though their relationship is on the ideal end of the mother/daughter spectrum, their talk was excellent. Kidd pronounced the relationship one of the most complex, citing the Greek myth of Persephone, and discussing the cyclical pattern of loss, search, and return intrinsic to the mother/daughter bond. Like Demeter, the mother is continually losing her daughter; she searches and searches for her, until finally, her daughter is returned to her, only to be lost once again.

What’s interesting to me about this myth, and about Kidd’s use of the myth to structure the book, is that the story is told from the mother’s point of view. Persephone isn’t an active participant in the tale, or the relationship. She’s stolen from her mother by Hades; her mother searches; and Persephone is returned to Demeter for a finite period of time (spring and summer).

What would the story look like from Persephone’s perspective? Perhaps her mother’s need for her is too great. Or maybe Persephone wants someone to know her, really know her, for the adult she has become. Could it be possible that she chooses to leave? That the brief period she spends with her mother every spring and summer is enough for her? That too much time, the addition of fall and winter, would only damage the relationship they both want to preserve?

Many years ago, my mom and I went alone to buy the family Christmas tree, sans dad and brother. We looked at tree after tree; my mom would point them out; I would veto them. It’s too tall, I’d say. Or, it’s too big; it won’t fit; it’ll make a mess. When we finally decided on a Douglas Fir, the man who helped us load the tree into the car laughed at us.

“It’s like a role reversal,” he said. “She’s like the mom.” He jerked his thumb in my direction. I couldn’t have been more than 13. My mom and I exchanged uncomfortable glances and feigned polite laughter.

Do we talk enough?

In the myth, the fact that Persephone is responsible for her mother’s happiness is presented as a given. A non-issue.

And yet the weight of this responsibility is enough to pull her below the earth’s surface.

It’s that heavy.

We talk just the right amount.

I have mixed feelings about fall. While most people declare it their favorite season, what with the pretty leaves and gorgeous weather, I approach fall with a conflicted mix of excitement and apprehension. For me, the arrival of this favored time of year is like running into an old flame, familiar yet foreign.

Historically, on the whole, fall has been good to me. (Unlike that manipulative bitch, spring, who plies me with false hope, only to knock me down and beat me with a rusty baseball bat.) No, fall has brought me all kinds of goodies over the years—my best friend, my first love, my favorite two-year-old, pumpkin-flavored everything—and yet, still, the apprehension.

This is due in part to the fact that fall stirs up memories and nostalgia like no other season. I step outside and suddenly it’s late September of 1997 and I’m falling in love for the first time, feeling light and giddy and excited and just so hopeful. I notice the changing leaves on my way into work and I’m back in Virginia, driving to a bed and breakfast with my ex, feeling, yes, happy and excited and hopeful. Or it’s October of 2001 and I’m in the apartment I shared with Lizzi in Alexandria, five miles from the Pentagon; she’s making cookies, and I feel safe and comforted despite the fact that there are men with guns on the street and the world is crumbling around us.

The memories are visceral. It’s as though fall removes the barriers of time, and I’m like a character in Lost, being yanked in and out of moments in my life. It makes me sad, reliving these moments, because I know how they end. I know that they end.

And yet, at the same time, with fall also comes anticipation. Another visceral feeling—something, anything might happen. Something good. Excitement, because despite the endings, when fall comes around yet again, I know that its those beginnings I’ll remember.

Next week, I’m vacationing with my closest friends (the ones whose pretty faces are plastered all over my site; the ones whom I’ve devoted an entire un-published book to). We do it every year, head down to Cape Cod and shack up in Cris’s family’s cottage (see homepage for photo of said cottage). It’s become a tradition, and I love that. I love our traditions.

I’ve been looking forward to this trip for months. We all have. For some of us, it’ll be the first vacation we’ve taken all summer (or all year). But more than that, it’s the one time during the whole year that all eight of us are together, in one place.

Aside from the Cape, we’ve taken quite a few trips together as a group, though usually with one or two of us missing. And every trip is memorable and wonderful. Which is why I always, always forget how fucking stressful the week leading up to the vacation is. But then, this is true of most family vacations, right? The packing, the logistics, the preparations.

Of course, with my friends, there’s always more to it than that. In addition to the mundane pre-vacation to-do list, there’s the drama. Oh, the drama.

Let me explain. My best friend Lizzi, for those of you who don’t know her, loves to cook. She’s an awesome cook, in fact, and she cooks for all of us, often. Many years ago, we were over at Adam’s for the Super Bowl. It was 2004, come to think of it, because Janet Jackson’s nipple was also in attendance that night. Lizzi planned to make hoagies, a Super Bowl tradition. (Like I said, we love our traditions.) I remember her stepping out of the kitchen and running through our orders: Julie, no peppers. Adam, no pepperoni. Cris, no tomatoes. And so on. Now, any other person who cooks for her friends on a regular basis would just make a bunch of fucking sandwiches. But not Lizzi. She always caters to our specific dietary preferences. Not only that, but she also remembers all of them.

I don’t cook, so my role is a little different. Substitute emotional needs and well-being for dietary preferences and you’ve got Julie. By that I mean, I cater to everyone’s feelings. I assess and uncover and mitigate and assuage and negotiate and resolve and encourage and facilitate. So you can imagine what my week’s been like. When eight adults who love one another as much as we do are about to embark on a week of togetherness, you’ve got problems. Lots of them. And the goal, if you’re a people-pleaser to the five-billionth degree like I am, is to resolve all of those issues so that the trip can be as fun as we want/hope/need it to be. So, I take it all on: the recent pseudo-break-up and the bullshit excuses and the petty fights and the awkward exes and the time to buy the groceries and the she e-mailed him but he doesn’t want to do that and he’s taking a half-day but she’s watching the kid and he just started a new job and she’s pissed and I’ll pick him up at the airport so that no one has to suffer anything or experience any discomfort. Because god forbid we experience discomfort.

I blame no one but myself for all of this. Like I said, I take it on. But then there’s my job and my other job and trying to finish everything before I leave and seeing my ex-non-boyfriend on the street and having to spend money I don’t have on new tires. And suddenly I’m screaming fuck you motherfucking fucker to some old man on the highway who’s driving ten miles below the speed limit. It ain’t pretty.

What I’m not-so-eloquently getting at is this: There’s currently a pimple on my chin the size of Canada. I’m calling it the Scooby pimple, because, well, the Scooby Gang put it there. My friends put it there. I put it there.

But the thing is, I know that by the time this horrid week is over, it will shrink. When I’m on the road, cruising down to the Cape, my pimple will be a distant memory. Because when all is said and done, unlike the family vacations of my youth, unlike most family vacations with everyone everywhere, this family, my friend family, actually enjoys one another’s company. We have fun together. We have more fun together than we do apart, and that’s why I sprout this pimple time and time again. Because once we get there, once we get past all the silliness and all the craziness, it’s worth it. Hell, it’s worth a thousand pimples.

Since starting my new job in February, I’ve spent a lot of time in the car. A lot.

I don’t really like all the driving and sitting, especially after taking public transportation for three years, but my brother has made my commute more bearable by giving me a cord to connect my iPod to my radio. (I know this is not a new thing to most people, but it has revolutionized my life.)

Every morning and every evening, 45 minutes there and one hour back, I shuffle. I have almost 2,000 songs on my iPod, and I cruise through all of them, bypassing the ones I don’t really like or don’t feel in the mood for. Sometimes I’m tired and I want something peppy, something to sing along to. Other times I’m contemplative and need some middle-ground music: not peppy, but not slow, either. Sometimes I’m feeling gushy and happy about life and want love songs. Other times I want to hang myself in my closet and need an appropriate suicide-inducing soundtrack. Crying, singing, zoning out—the music I choose to listen to in my car is dependent upon my mood on that given day in that given moment.

There are, however, a few exceptions. A few songs on my iPod that make the cut, no matter what I’m feeling. Happy, sad, I never skip them, and I never tire of them.

“Missing You” – John Waite
I actually have two versions of this song—the original, and one that he sings with Alison Krauss. (Both are excellent.) What I like about this song is that it can fit a variety of moods. It covers the full range of post-break-up emotions: denial, anger, heartache, acceptance, peace. No matter what stage of a break-up you’re in, this song has got you covered. At the same time, if you’re not sad or heartbroken, the beauty of “Missing You” is that it won’t bring you down. The tune is just upbeat enough that you can still sing along, all the while thinking, Man, I’m glad I’m not that guy.

“Sway” – Bic Runga
This song makes me feel all misty inside. That doesn’t really make sense, but it’s the best way I can describe it. I heard this song for the first time while watching American Pie back in college; it’s played at the end, when the boys are finally doing the deed with their respective women. The second time I heard it was in the room of a friend whom I later fell semi-in-love with. Despite the fact that he didn’t reciprocate my feelings, I’ve always loved this song. For me it’s all about longing and not being able to convey everything you’re feeling about someone. And I suppose I’m always feeling that longing, for something or someone. My head is battling with my heart / My logic’s all been torn apart / I say it’s all because of you.

“After All” – Cher and Peter Cetera
Yes, this is the cheesiest song on this list (though, c’mon, it’s me. They’re all cheesy). When we were kids, my brother Peter and I would find a movie we liked and watch it over and over and over and over again until the tape wore out—our obsessive natures revealing themselves. One of these movies was the 1989 classic, Chances Are, starring Robert Downey Jr. and Cybil Shepherd. And the theme song for the movie was, you guessed it, “After All.” (The song won an Oscar. Go figure.) Even though it’s not the most appropriate song to share with one’s brother, to this day I still consider it our song (just substitute “kiss” with “punch to the head”). My brother is, after all (ha), the one man who has always been and will always be there for me. Now that was cheesy.

“Bleed to Love Her” – Fleetwood Mac
This song just fucking rocks. And I’m not saying that because I have the hots for Lindsey Buckingham (which I do). I loved this song the first time I heard it, but it was actually my best friend Lizzi who sealed the deal for me. Not only did she adopt the song and play it on repeat while at the office and in our apartment, but she also once said to me, “This song always makes me think of you, because it describes how I want the man you end up with to feel about you.” Sniff.

“In Your Eyes” – Peter Gabriel
This is hands down my favorite song of all time. (Though Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” is a close second.) Aside from the John Cusack/Lloyd Dobler-ness of it all (“I gave her my heart, and she gave me a pen”), this song expresses how I feel about love. What love is and what it means to me. Without a noise / Without my pride / I reach out from the inside.

How about you? Which songs do you never tire of? Which songs fit all of your moods?