Seven Years Later

Seven years ago, I started this blog as an ambitious 24 year-old one year into my career in Washington DC, and in love with a boy with a girlfriend.  Fast forward to now,  I am a 31 year-old single cat mom living in Charlotte, NC.  It has been almost a year since I moved to Charlotte.  Countless times I have begun to write about this huge life change, to write about the catalyst for the change, and the struggle of starting my life over in a new place at 30 but couldn’t find the words.  As often as I have shared the most intimate parts of my life with all of you, this was just something I felt I needed to be mine and mine alone.

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. 

Lucy Kitten Adventures

So far 2017 has already held its fair share of life-changing moments, many of which I wish had never happened, but there is one that has changed my life for the better.  In March I adopted a kitten!  Her name is Lucy and she has become my everything.  

I have always loved animals.  Growing up we had dogs, cats, and a rabbit..  My mother even has a story about me trying to smuggle kittens from a family friend's house in the front pockets of my dress when I was about 3 years old.  Living in the city I always knew I would eventually want to get a cat.  As much as I love dogs, I am not going to wake up at 6am to walk it when it is snowing or raining or Saturday.  When I found my current apartment last February, being cat-friendly was a must.  

After waiting a year so that I was comfortable in my place, and finally at a job where I plan on staying for a while, it was time to bring a cute little furball into my life. I started to get lost on adoption sites like Petfinder.  I convinced Chloe to be my cat whisperer and to take me to pick a kitten out from Petsmart.  About a week before our scheduled trip, I was looking at an adoption site, and there she was.  The cutest kitten that I had ever seen.  I said out loud this is white and tabby-patched girl with big eyes is my cat!  I quickly emailed an application in to see if she was still available.  One week later Chloe and Betsy were driving me to pick up Gracie Lou up from her foster home.  I loved her immediately and renamed her Lucy.  

The day before I picked up Lucy was one of the hardest days of my life.  I found out about my father's affair.  It was the day that forever changed my family.  I couldn’t have gotten my furry source of unconditional love at a more opportune time.  From the first time she crawled in my lap the first night, she was my furbaby and I was her mom, and we were in this together from that moment forward.  This is when you can insert all your crazy cat lady joke if you must.  

I have embraced the cat lady lifestyle fully.  I show my coworkers cat pictures, make the cat sitter send me pictures when I am traveling, and have canceled plans because I would rather drink wine at home with my cat.  My boss likes to remind me that I have eliminated 20% of the male dating population by getting a cat.  I have even created her own Instagram page (@luckykittenadventures).  #fullcatladylife

Sidebar: Why with people who are obsessed with their dogs they aren’t a crazy dog lady, but the moment someone gets a cat people tell her she is a crazy cat lady and will probably die alone?!?  It is just rude!

Truly, Lucy has been one of the only lights in a very dark and emotional time in my life.  I have cried in her fur more than I will ever admit.  She knows when I am upset and tries to comfort me.  Choosing to adopt her at that exact moment in my life was serendipitous.  The universe knew she needed a home and that I was going to need her.  Thank you universe, for bringing me the most adorable, silly, loving furball I ever could have asked for.  

* To Learn More about adopting a cat or dog of your own in the DC/ Maryland/Virginia area visit Lucky Dog Animal Rescue.