I meant to bike to work today. I really did. But then the weather guy said there was a chance of rain. Well, to be fair, he said it “probably wouldn’t” rain, but that it was possible, especially everywhere in the state except my county. But still, who wants to bike in the rain, especially with a computer on my back! That’s right, I couldn’t risk my computer, and that’s why I couldn’t bike to work.

This resolve lasted for a few minutes… about 12. And then I realized that it really wasn’t going to rain. This is the weather guy that predicted snow 4 days out of 5 last winter, but very little snow actually fell. He just really likes his precipitation.

But then! I was packing my lunch (wasn’t I being a good girl this morning!) and realized that I wanted a mug of iced coffee to take with me to work. Not only that, but I can’t just buy this at or near work, and I’m not allowed to have an “unapproved” beverage container at work. Approved beverage containers are spill-resistant. Their lids screw on. So I can’t buy coffee on the way, either, unless I get it put into an approved container. But I can’t bike while holding a travel mug of coffee. And besides, it might rain, and I’m carrying my computer.

So I didn’t bike to work today.

I’ve often wished I could re-live five or ten minutes of my life. I know most people have this wish. People have told me of similar segments of time during which their brains turned right off. But I bet few have watched themselves become the worst kind of self-fulfilling prophecy in the same spectacular way as I did recently.

There’s a backstory. There always is. About a week ago a muggy, hot day resolved into a cool, still night with such serenity that I gave up any idea of going to be early and went to sit out on my porch and listen to the breeze rustle through the pine trees. Not two minutes after I settled myself on the floorboards of the porch, my downstairs neighbor and the couple that just moved in below her started getting to know each other by bad-mouthing me. At first I was a little taken aback and hurt, but then it got too preposterous to be anything but funny.

Mr. First Floor was ever so casually mentioning that he’d heard quite a racket above him the night he moved in. Miss Second Floor (who had been building what looked like book cases) said, “Oh, no, that must have been the person on the top floor.” Yep, that’s me, the one who won’t run her dishwasher after 8:30pm because somebody below her might be settling down to sleep, the one who won’t walk in one part of her floor at night or in the morning because it creaks so badly. Yep, that’s me.

“I guess sound travels pretty well through these buildings,” Mr. First floor conceded, “because I can hear to get up to go to the bathroom every night at three in the morning.”

“Yep, it sure does,” Miss Second Floor laughed. “Just yesterday I was wondering what in the world you were doing down there. What was all that crashing?” (Mr. First Floor had been putting together a bedroom set.)

“Oh, I wasn’t doing anything,” Mr. First Floor protested innocently. “That must have been the person on top of us.”

“I suppose so, she’s so loud!”

They continued getting to know each other in this vein for quite some time while I sat on my porch trying hard not to giggle out loud. I was torn between just joining their conversation with a hearty “Oh, I KNOW” and sitting absolutely quietly so that I could hear more.

So anyway, just days after this I was sitting out there reading a book, sipping iced tea, and watching Pippin (who was out with me in his cat carrier) watch the birds and the flies and anything else that moved. Mr. and Mrs. First Floor were having a gathering of sorts below me. Well, eventually it got too dark to read outside, and the bugs were coming out, so I gathered my book and my tea and took them indoors. Then I returned for the cat. Just as I picked him up, Mrs. First Floor called up to me.

“Hello!”

“Hi” [pause… I should make conversation. I could talk about their garden… no it’s dying, though the weeds are doing well. I could talk about the weather, but how better to draw attention to the fact that I’m the most boring person on earth, and ten years older than her to boot. But she thinks I’m annoying. She thinks I’m stupid. I’m not stupid. What can I talk about that’ll be as un-stupid as possible… and friendly. I’m friendly! I really am!]

“How are you?” I ask. [Oh, good one. THAT marks you as a scintillating personality, a witty comrade in apartment living.]

“I’m fine… How are you?” [Well, at least she’s as tongue-tied as I am. But where do we go from here?]

I stared down at her garden, hoping against hope that it would suddenly spring into vibrant life so I could complement her on it. Even worse, her one-year-old son had run off, so he’d effectively taken himself out of the running for spontaneous conversation.

“Well,” I say, unsure how I’m going to finish this sentence, “… I’ve got my cat here.” [Where did THAT come from? Why is that an excuse for going inside? Was that an excuse for going inside? Was it supposed to be a conversation starter? Who SAYS that?]

Hoping to keep myself from saying anything else as Pulitzer Prize quality as my previous sentence I muttered something about hoping she’d have a good evening and then retreated indoors. Yeah, now she knows I’m annoying and stupid. Great.

A year ago today I was enduring my first Saturday alone in a new state, far away from everyone I knew and loved. I’d never anticipated how physical the pain of loneliness could be, and how it could last and last. Even though I’m no longer alone in this state, and even though I’ve grown accustomed to keeping in touch with my family from a distance, every once in a while and without warning I grieve for what I once had.

I miss sitting in the same room with my parents and siblings, content in their proximity even when there was nothing to say. I miss watching my little brother play endless hours of computer games. I miss my family dog. Somehow, in the midst of my new life, I’m intensely lonely some days, and nothing anyone does or says seems to help.

Luckily, these days are relatively few and far between, and I’ve lived through enough of them that I know they’ll pass.

Irrationally, on these days I miss living in a big city, even though prior to this I’d lived for 6 years in a wanna-be rural-like suburb of a city. I remember moving there and staring in wonder and awe at the corn fields that were less than a quarter mile from our new house. I was suddenly confronted with the realization that even though my girlhood fantasy of living on a farm, riding horses, and wearing long dresses and bonnets every day and been deep-rooted and remarkably consistent (as far as girlhood fantasies go), this was not actually the life for me. I was a city girl at heart, no matter how unromantic that was.

I would never live a life pitted against nature, struggling between taming the land and starving. I would never nurse dying horses back to health. I would never farm the land while battling pneumonia so that I could feed my 10 or 12 children.

No, I realized that years of living in Boston and Chicago (even if I had been born in small-town South Dakota) had conditioned me to expect and thrive on little things that foster human interaction, like sidewalks. Seriously, if you’ve never lived in a sidewalk-free town, you may be taking these fine pieces of construction for granted. Take it from me: lack of sidewalks changes the energy of the entire city.

Well, I thought I’d lived in a small town. I’d experienced life without sidewalks. I’d walked to nearby cornfields. I’d experienced life with fewer than 25,000 people. And then I moved to small-town Minnesota… Ironically, there’s more activity in this city than in the sidewalk-less suburb I moved from. There are even sidewalks here, though they appear and disappear on the sides of streets without rhyme or reason, even in the middle of blocks. And I’m “only” 45 minutes from a major city. But I hate driving, and in my brain a trip of 50 miles is a journey rather than a jaunt. I have to plan such journeys and combine multiple errands to justify them, so I don’t just hop up to the city on a whim.

Still, it’s not all bad. I’ve met some truly wonderful people, and I’ve completed a full year in the job that has become my dream job. I guess I’m just slow at adapting to major life changes.