this will be short

I left aquatic zumba, a little drippy, a strong sent of chlorine all over me. No bra, just dress, just towel, just one glow bracelet and one glow necklace on me. I felt like a little girl that just left a pool party. 

Well, yes, that's what it was. A pool party. Pitbull, latin music, Bruno Mars, that's how you know. 

I locked the car, the left bumper still damaged and seen even in the dark, and it's night. It was 10:30 PM, getting home.

I stood still in the middle of the red brick road, between my car and the curb, looking up at the sky. I felt my lips part, opening slightly in awe as I took in everything, absolutely everything around me. I felt like I was bleeding through time. I use the word bleeding a lot but my mind was rushing through time, as I stood still on that hill, like the first deer I ever saw that stood in the exact same spot. Perhaps the same deer that ate Maeghen's flowers. Or the same deer that ate everyone else's flowers. So I stood still, on this red bricked hill, and breathed through that nostalgic feeling. I remembered that it looked just like that, that darkness, those crickets, the tall grass, the stars, the same uneven cement steps, the duplex I rented, I remembered the pit in my belly that it was, "Oh, it is this. This is what I have to start my life with." It looked just as scenic as this the first time I arrived. I remembered the bags and bags in the car. I stared longer at the street corner where Sixth met Tupper St, and remembered what it was like to finally discover I could park my car overnight next to the cemetery, and how slow and sad my first walks home from work were. My ankle was less stiff back then than it is today. I had a boyfriend then whom made the trip with me and dropped me off. Jorge was probably as confused as I was, why I ever left Houston when he saw the sight, and was probably timing when was the best day to leave me. Maybe let himself care only enough about me, but not too much. Maybe let his mind wander to the colleague that called him at midnight, of all times in a day to call, and about whom, to me, when caught, he brushed off too easily. I never believed him when he said he felt nothing of her, not in the way her name often rested in his mouth. The gut feeling I had never changed. If any of those feelings stayed, and they did, then we were doomed. So with stupid feelings like that and a homesickness that lingered everywhere, I started from zero. I had no friends in town. I had no plans in town. 

I held a winter alone.

As I breathed in the heartbreak of that first nostalgia, I took in the crickets. Gosh, they're loud. And the stars are still there, bright as always. As many as I remember the first night, or that first winter, or that night I got back from the drag circus show haha with Maeghen and Austin and we laughed all the way home as I dropped them off, or the Halloween trick-or-treating night with little Sabrina before she could walk, or the night I crawled back to bed after pickleball and smiled myself into the sheets for being such a big girl and hosting a crowd, or at Enit's, where he didn't hold me for long but was warm regardless, or calling Yen or Ivanna or Elise late, late into the night, losing track of time as we got lost in each other's drama. That's what a night looks like in Marietta.

And I took it in. Gosh. I've come so far, truly. After seeing Cindy and Hannah tonight, another spontaneous plan. Their laughter tonight. Pitbull and Bruno Mars and Ariana Grande still pulsing through my little body, it wasn't the club. It wasn't anything like that. It was a little blip of time, where the sunset reverberated across a spray of clouds above, right above that beautiful pool, that I'll remember. I'll remember the way Cindy and Hannah looked at me, so kindly. So happily. The three of us softly teasing each other into giggles. I will remember tonight, like any other night. 

I'll remember Boondocks in McConnelsville. That mac and cheese hamburger scrambling to stay a burger. Jessica's beautiful smile across the table as I shared silly Houston stories. The same smile I put on Jing whenever I admitted that guns do feel like home, especially hearing them for New Years Eve, Christmas, and July 4th. An AK being an AK for the holidays was the one time it could be an AK. That's my hot take. Shove me out the door now. 

Ah, and my landlord and I. My landlord and I. She is a sweet woman. The best of the best. Creme of the creme. Kindest of the kind.

I am thankfully, not the blindest of the blind. #Lasik.

This whole little random bit that's not really even a blog episode feels like I wrote this after chugging my expired Chocolatini. But no. I didn't drink it tonight. And it's expired because I left it in the Subaru too long and only realized I probably forgot it for too long because I left work, only to see in a vast parking lot FULL of cars, at least 15 dragonflies swarmed ONLY my car. I managed to scramble through their fast, circling aggressive flight patterns to get in. And drive fast. But fuck, one dragonfly managed to chase me all the way to Star of India. And yeah. That's how I knew I fucked up.

I won't even drink it tomorrow night. I only drink if it's a chance to see Jana at the bar or tell Enit that he's too damn easy to read and that no, I won't go to Red Lobster with him even if the new CEO is hot, because I don't fuck with crawfish. Or lobsters. I'm sorry.

And Jana! Gosh. A break feels like a REAL break with Jana at work. She's my actual work friend. She makes me laugh alll the damn time. ALL THE DANG TIME. This woman is so charming, even when her little emotion's sign says she's probably "Exhausted". It's crazy. And when you have a work friend that's sitting across your boss BOSS at some obscure good-bye dinner for some lady, repping you up? Crazy. Fucking crazy. Jana is my goat. The goat. She picked me up from the body shop and took me to work with her because I am baby girl. I can be baby girl with Ms. Jana. I can be soft bean. 

I am tired. I AM TIRED of the lack of chances to be baby girl lately. It is PHENOMENALLY EXHAUSTING to be responsible all the time. I just want to be chased out of work and yelled at for not being baby girl enough. ENOUGH. 

Tell no one, but the moment I get home, I don't even take off my ankle brace. I turn the AC on high. I flick on my lights, and fall face down into bed with the room all bright, so I don't fall asleep at 5 and ruin my sleep schedule. My face buried into my blanket. Breathing is near impossible, and I swear, I could feel time be easy on me. I could feel all the tension melting into my sheets and running away. I could feel my eyeballs massaged by the pressure of the pillow I chose to fall on.

So guys, I'm still standing at the top of this hill. I'm still there, where that deer last was. I'm still reflecting. Follow me, will you?

I haven't gone anywhere, as I reflect how...

wow. I started with nobody. And in my mentoring call today, I told this incredibly established individual, this amazing woman, something I'm so proud about, "I knew not a soul coming into this town, into this great State of Ohio, but... now I'm leaving it with at least one hundred people who actually know me and care about me. That's how things have been like out here. :)"

I do. 

Rick, my favorite mailman, always asks me in third person, with that glint in his eye. Despite the fact that he ought to be retired, he lightly pitter patters everywhere across our bank providing mail. He always asks me in third person, looking on kindly "How is Ngoc doing today?"

If Rick happened to send me mail at that exact moment, at 10:30 PM on a Friday night, walking past me with his little mail cart, polite and cordial and wholesome, I'd answer him softly that, "I never would have expected to feel so full tonight. So, so whole. So deserving of every person who now cares about me. I feel like a very sweet little lady tonight, Rick. Stay out of trouble, too, little man."

So I climbed up those steps. Dodged the crazy fat bugs zipping in the tall grass. The chlorine on my body lingered, layering the flower-tea-ish scent of a cool summer night. 

This is all that I have, everything that I have, here in Marietta Ohio, to be very brief with you.