It was just two short months from the day I first contemplated leaving DC to the day I drove away for a new job in Charlotte. It was like I blinked, and I had changed my whole life without really processing everything I was leaving behind. Although the move has been good for me, and there were really reasons for it, leaving DC felt like leaving a part of me behind. It was like I split my heart in two and when I went home at night I would cry for that part of me. There was a time when I believed that DC was the love of my life and there was no way I would ever live anywhere else. It was as if DC was woven into the fiber of the adult I became there and I never really knew.
How can this be Capitol Confessions if I am no longer in the Capitol? If I am honest I stopped being that Harper a long time ago. Harper Waverly is an alter ego I don’t recognize anymore. She is the pen name I chose when writing as myself was impossible. As I have discovered new hobbies, new sources of happiness, I have lost other parts of myself. It seems impossible to be everything all at once, to fit in all the boxes and please all the people from each aspect of my life. I am an Ole Miss Sorority girl, a southern debutante, a political junky, a Harry Potter fangirl, a true Whovian, a professional in corporate America, a pop-culture addict, an Anglophile, a Comic-Con goer, and a cosplayer.
In the past year I have done things I never thought I would do; maybe because outside of DC the pressures as someone who could run for office someday have lifted. I have had dramatic moments that have lead to high highs and very low lows. How do I articulate all the joy and pain of the past year of my life, because I don’t think I can do it justice? The words to describe the devastating gaping hole that leaving Chloe, my best friend, my person, left inside of me and the struggle we went through to find our new normal. Meeting new people who finally made Charlotte feel more like a home and less like a mistake. Having a clandestine affair in an empty ballroom of an Atlanta hotel at 4am the last night of DragonCon (I really should tell you all that story sometime). A relationship with real promise ruined by a broken condom and a trip to buy Plan B because it made things very heavy way too soon, and the havoc it reaped on my body (both the Plan B and the loss).
I have no idea how to put a year worth of life changing events, crippling depression, unbridled indulgence, creative expression, new friendship, and intense loneliness into a few paragraphs. Over that year I have found my place in Charlotte; I have created a home I am proud of and accumulated a family that supports me at every turn.
I might not know how to share the time that has past since I last wrote, but I do want to share all that is to come. Thank you for reading and being a part of my journey over the past 7 years. I hope you will continue on this roller coaster with me as I navigate friendships, career, and dating as a 30-something in the South.
