Coming clean

My head was pressed against the steering wheel as I cried into my speakers on the phone with Shane.

“I just can’t do this anymore,” I sobbed. “I don’t want to be here. I want to be in Las Vegas. Or Europe. I am so stuck!”

It had been more than a week since I had been back from Las Vegas and I was frozen.

Stalled.

Stuck in this miserable, awful rut of self-pity. Of confusion. Of every rotten emotion someone could have.

I don’t want to be in Maryland. I want to be in Las Vegas.

“What can you do to make it happen?” My patient friend asked.

I needed a job. I needed money. I needed so many things to simultaneously fall into place that it made my head spin.

“I don’t know.”

A few days earlier I had posted on facebook about how badly I wanted to be back in Las Vegas.

“Just come home …” Kyla had written on my wall. “You can come be a nanny and we will figure it out.”

“Just do it,” he said as I sat in my car, motionless, hoping to regain my composure once I walked in the front door.

“Right,” I began, and then he and I planned everything out.

A few minutes later I had calmed down and let myself in my house, where my dad was sitting at the kitchen table.

“Dad,” I breathed. “I need to talk to you.”

We sat together and I laid it out.

I want to move  back to Las Vegas. Even though I don’t have a job. Even though I am running out of money. Even though my belongings are in Atlanta. I am going to buy a ticket out there, returning in a month for Thanksgiving, and I am going to live with Kyla and I am going to pound the pavement until I find a job. Then, I am going to make my stay as permanent as I can make anything (semi-permanent).

It was a risk. There was a real threat of not succeeding and having to return to Maryland, tail tucked between my legs and even more miserable than I had been.

But, hell. It’s not like I hadn’t taken any risks before. Right?

“OK,” he said, grinning. “You do what you need to do.”

So, I booked a round-trip ticket  from BWI to Las Vegas, Vegas back to BWI… and then another ticket to return to Las Vegas after Thanksgiving.

“I’m doing it,” I said, smiling to myself.

A wave of emotion rushed over me. Comfort. Relief. Challenge.

At that moment, everything finally felt right.