Crying in Pilates
Sorry for the slight lack of posts, I was busy finishing this bad boy:
Dissertation submitted! All 117 pages sent onto my committee, who will mark it up with copious amounts of red ink and grill me on June 9th. Don’t you want to trade places with me that day? I mean I’ll make you cookies! Oh what’s that you say, you don’t want to switch? You’d rather be sunning yourself on some tropical beach somewhere with a margarita in your hand? Damn, I thought it might have been a fair trade.
In the meantime, I’m spending my time crying in gym classes.
Yes I cried in my pilates class last week. Not because the moves were killer on my abs, nah that would be too logical.
So what triggered a tear-jerker moment in pilates?
It all started because the instructor was playing Mat Kearney song “New York to California” (download it now, it’s sooo good). This song also happened to be the background music to our wedding slide show, so a flood of wedding memories began spinning through my head. Because our wedding was in Santa Barbara it also made me think how much I love this city. Which in turn made me think about our impending move away from the sea-side town that holds hundreds, thousands of memories. And then the tears started flowing…
Thankfully I was lying on my stomach doing abs moves so no one could actually see the tears streaming down my face.
This has been my life recently. Crying at really inopportune times. It happens while driving, while running outside, even when sitting in my office staring out my window. I’m not a blubbering mess, just a sentimental person who is sad to be leaving a fabulous place with even more incredible people.
The funny thing is I can talk about the move without much emotion. I repeatedly tell people how excited I am to be moving back to Baltimore to start my internship, but also sad to be leaving Santa Barbara. I nonchalantly talk about my new position and new apartment. Now it’s become routine to say “Yes it will be a tough transition, but it will also be great to be back my family and old friends again.” All flippantly said with a smile and a shrug. Then I switch the subject by “Enough about me, how was your weekend?”
As any of you know who’ve had to leave something behind, it is not the easiest thing. But you also probably know how exciting it can be when you’re on the brink of something new and unexpected. The struggle lies in finding the balance between the two emotions.
I find myself longing for the days we first stepped foot into our first California apartment, literally knowing not a single soul. We went out to a nearby sports bar our first night and just stared at everyone around us wondering if one day we might know them. Pondering if we would eventually be saying things like “gnarly” and “brah,” or cutting class because there happened to be good surf that day. I marveled at how tan and blond everyone really was, and the slower SoCal pace of life. I felt like I was in the movies or at least an episode of Laguna Beach for those first couple weeks.
What seemed to be straight from the Hills started becoming real life. We didn’t take up surfing and most hours were not spent on the beach. What did happen was much greater than anything a movie or reality television show could ever script. Santa Barbara became our home. It contains the beach Mike got down on one knee to propose, the wedding site our closest family and friends watched us saying our vows, the school I soon will earn a PhD, and the place I have made life-long friends. All things that in my opinion trump a good surf ride any day of the week.
So if you look over and see the person next to you crying in pilates, don’t judge. Just give them a smile will you? They might just be happily reliving some fond memories.
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Loved this post! Maybe you’re meant to stay in CA…. And, congrats on turning in your dissertation!!!!!
California definitely holds a special place in my heart. Who knows where we’ll eventually end up!
Lindsey, what a beautiful post! I truly don’t blame you for getting emotional what with working so hard to finish your dissertion (major congrats!) and with having to leave such a beautiful and meaningful place. I am positive that you two will be able to find just as much fun in B’more and that it will also become such a special place to you both. I wish you all the best with all of the changes and stresses that you have right now.
Congrats again!
Thank you! You are always so sweet with your comments. Good luck with your move too wherever that might be – do you know yet?
First of all, congrats on your dissertation.
Secondly, I live that entire Mat Kearney album and can still remember seeing him live for the first time YEARS ago in college (right before he “made it” with ‘Nothing Left to Lose’) and standing there at the concert crying quietly while he sang the song he wrote for a friend who had survived Katrina…we’d just come back from doing relief work down there and it just conjured up so many emotions.
Basically, I feel ya on the whole “crying at the most random times” thing.
This is a lovely post, and, as I am about to embark on the unexpected (silly budget cuts in the educational system), I can relate to the mixed emotions.
Thanks so much! I saw him live at SoHo, this little music club in Santa Barbara, and loved him! He was even better live and just an all around cool guy.
And I feel you on the budget cuts…ugh. That’s another reason getting out of Cali might be a good idea since this state is an educational nightmare!
Hello,
No unfortunately we don’t know yet. We extended our lease through June to have a better chance of moving directly to our new city. My husband’s brother may be referring him to his company which is the Boston area. Not my first choice weather wise but that’s okay!
Lindsey,
Great post, great blog. Excited I found it 
I feel like everything about this post was sooo close to home for me. I recently, as in January, moved TO Santa Barbara FROM the east coast (Boston). I was only in the Boston area for about 4 years (although I was born and raised in northern Maine), there is where my fiance got down on one knee (in the Boston Public Garden), where we made life long friends, I developed my passionate love for Crossfit…the list goes on. I remember the second we drove into the SB (sold everything and drove across country with nothing but love, haha), parked at East Beach and touched the Pacific. Looking around I was excited, terrified, happy and incredibly sad all at once. I made all my memories back there, just like you did here…but we’ll make many more where we are now. If you ever decide you guys want to come back to SB, maybe WE’LL get to know eachother
Jen thank you so much for the beautiful comment! I can’t believe you just moved to Santa Barbara and I’m now “meeting” you! I loved my 4 years in Santa Barbara, I will fondly refer to them as my growing up period. Now being back in my hometown of Baltimore I know how needed it was to have those years out west. So excited for you and your husband!