keep moving forward

It has been three months since I last stepped foot on Albanian soil. Somehow it feels like eons and seconds simultaneously. So, as I sit here waiting for my beans to boil, taking in the smell of good old Albanian comfort food, I realized how very much I need to face the things that my brain has managed to keep wrangled in the space between what I know to be true and what I accept as the truth. It's time to move forward. It's time to let go.

Pros of being home, back with the best of buddies. Cons, still haven't broken the habit of hiding my dirty hair with hats.

I sat down with my sister the other day to watch Ferris Buhler's Day Off, a true classic, a classic that also speaks so much truth. I had absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into when I hopped on a plane to Albania over a year ago. How could I? What I did know is that I had some soul searching to do, and that the life of falling into the comfortable that I had known to that point, was not going to give me the answers I was looking for. Though I would argue that Albania stretched and formed me in many crucial ways, I think much of what I have learned about myself and about the world came after I departed so suddenly. It came in these past three months in the form of pain, loss, success, and acceptance, to name a few.

Pros of being home 2.0, Ally can drive! Cons of being home 2.0, neither of my parents have long enough hair to understand the pain of sitting in the back of a convertible.

I felt like a failure. I didn't have a plan. I didn't have a purpose. I didn't think I would have to face that for another year. I wasn't ready to face it. I really wasn't ready to face the part of me that was causing that feeling. Regardless, that feeling hit me full on in the face the second I stepped off that plane. I was getting a ride home from my dad. 25 years old, and still depending on the grace of my parents for transportation, not to mention the food I would soon gorge my feelings away with, the bed that would support my exhausted body, the pillow that would soak up my tidal wave of tears. I was 25, unemployed, in an impossible relationship, and hiding secrets from everyone, even myself.

I have now mastered all types of bread making. Feat. Sourdough.

So at this point, I think you should get a bit of a recap of life these past few months. Let's go back to where this all began, March 12th: The day I found out I was leaving Albania. March 14th: Left Çorovodë for the last time. March 15th: Boarded the first leg of my journey home, got stuck in Germany. March 16th: Boarded the second leg of my journey home, got stuck in D.C. March 17th: Boarded the final two legs of my journey home, and got stuck nowhere, thankfully, but did find myself in quarantine. Week one of quarantine was a giant pity party. Week two, I got to work. I applied to 20+ jobs in a panic, because the reality hit me that, although quarantine was giving me the graceful excuse to stay home, quarantine would not last forever. Nothing was stable. Nothing was sure. Absolutely nothing was comfortable. That feeling of failure was creeping in on me, and I knew it would soon take me over.

This is a picture of a rainbow that could be anywhere (but it's really over Lake Shawnee) to disguise the fact that I have virtually no pictures in between when I got home and when I moved to Topeka.

My cousin called on the last day of my quarantine and asked if I could come help out for a while at his nursing home, a job I never thought would be on my radar, but at that point, quarantine was running out, and if I was going to continue running from my feelings, I was going to need a new distraction. So I rolled up to that nursing home on April 3rd, and found everything I never knew I needed, but more on that later.

April 4th: It all happened so fast. I went from 0 to 100 in what felt like mere seconds. I was cleaning out my room and came across old notes from guest speakers in graduate school, did a quick search for a website of an organization I had been impressed with back in the day, and found out they were hiring. I filled out an application got a call the next day about setting up an interview. I interviewed a week later, and got a job offer just a few days after that, April 14th, actually. Three weeks and 5 days after my world came crashing down. I accepted, and set out to start three weeks later. Three weeks to get my world in order before becoming the career woman that I currently am. Hilarious.

First day selfie.

So I got to work. I called a friend of mine, told him my dream car was a Mini Cooper, but that I really just needed something solid, and I needed it quickly. He called the next day and told me a Mini had just come in... what are the chances? Turns out it was, in fact, a dream car, and soon it was mine.

My apartment search was equally lucky. I called asking about lofts, and was told that just two days before, a current resident had decided to buy a house, making the first loft vacancy in three years. It was the first on my list of places to visit that day, but I never made it to the others. It took seven minutes from darkening the doorway before I had signed papers and laid down a deposit for the incredible space I now call home.

The loft.

Life was handing me a lot of wins, but I think life knew that I needed them. I'm convinced that nothing else could have pulled me out of that dark hole and given me the strength to deal with what was coming. Everything was falling into place at a time of incredible unlikeliness. I got a job when everyone around me was scared for theirs. I bought a car when the world was barely allowed on the streets. I found a loft when so many people were wondering where their next rent check would come from. I was incredibly fortunate in an incredibly unfortunate time. That much is abundantly clear to me. All along the way, it was occurring to me that I was setting down some deep roots, and I dealt with a lot of guilt about that. I was making the choice to stay and abandon the possibility of returning to Albania, to Niku. Looking back, I think I knew then that I would need those roots to cling to very soon.

The actual cutest loft there ever was.

I can recall so many times in my life where I pleaded with God to give me a sign. I can recall so many times in my life where I have turned my back on those signs, and said, "Nope, God. I meant give me the sign I want to see." This time, though, God threw a damn marquee in my path. What I didn't realize at the time, though, was that He had also thrown down a big pile of boards, so that when I was ready, I could board up the path that wasn't for me, once and for all.

I'll stop with the loft pics soon, I promise.

So suddenly, the feeling of failure was gone, but in its place was the real pain I had been grappling with for years. It was time to move on. It was time to become my own. It was time to leave the nest one final time. It was painfully hard, but the marquee said that was my path. With it, came even more clarity. I had been making excuses far too long for the controlling nature of my relationship, amounting it to cultural differences, hiding it from my family and friends who I knew all along would tell me to run if they knew, constantly berating myself for not having the courage to admit that it was so much more than culture.

They decided this was safe as soon as my parents left.

It came to a head over a towel, but perhaps more importantly, limits being placed on the terms under which I could spend time with my family. The marquee had glowing lights now, ones to keep the path lit for me as I painstakingly built the barrier that was long overdue with a strength I never knew I had. It turns out that when you stop carrying burdens on your own, the people you share them with can give you the strength to rid yourself of them entirely. I have learned many things over the past year, but perhaps the most important is that sometimes love isn't enough, or maybe more accurately, it shouldn't be.

Seriously, safety to the absolute max. Feat. A slumbering Keegan who apparently used a super stable stacked stool ladder situation to reach his bedroom quarters.

I am incredibly thankful for the support I have in the people I love most in this world, for the people who have never swayed. I am incredibly thankful to have been pulled away from my reality, as I know that each and every loss and hardship was necessary to bring me to where I am today. I am thankful it happened when it did, because with every day, my independence was fighting a losing battle to the excuses I was clinging to. I am thankful for the hours I whiled away talking through life's struggles with my favorite residents at the nursing home, and just as I did with Granny and my grandma when life got rough, I am thankful that Gladys and Etoys were there with me when I needed them. From the beginning, I would come home and tell my family how strongly those two reminded me of my own family matriarchs, and I think it was no accident that I wound up in a random job that would bring me to them.

I am my own.

All feelings aside, I think I've finally found some peace. So, I'm going to go to the gym now, because I can. Before I go, I'll bring this full circle. It's been three months of racing through life to find some peace in a very unpeaceful time. What I've realized though is that if I don't stop and take a second to face what's hard to face, pull those truths out of my head and throw them onto the table, it's really easy to lose myself. "Life moves pretty fast, if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." -Ferris Buhler