#just a crumb of what this hellish existence is taking from me

[fortjester]

girl r u ever not on ur period

I ask myself this near daily

[narutofanfactsorrussianfanfics]

Undesired author: Minata Tsukuri (not me) (link to fanfiction: https: //ficbook.net/readfic/3121120)

Description: Any fan of anime wants to get into the world of anime even for a day. Any, but not me. But, as everyone knows, the law of meanness is the law of the universe. In addition, I am a winner in life. Indeed, who but me can get into the world of an unloved anime ?! No wonder they say that you get not what you want, but what you need. Check it out?

Unfulfilled gesture or the end of the old life!

A nasty buzzer rang a few meters away. The green monster swept at me at tremendous speed. I did not have time to really get scared, I just closed my eyes. It seems that at such moments all life should fly by. At least that's what they write in books and shown in films. But the only thought stuck in my head - today I did not kiss my mother ... Yes. This day has not been asked in the morning.

Autumn wind burst into the open window. Because of him, the room immediately became cool, smelled of damp and autumn fog, piercing to the bone. Morning frost ran into the room and clawed at my legs and made me sniff. The crumbs of heat immediately dissipated, and I had to wrap myself more tightly in a warm saving blanket.

07.30 a.m. “Hey, Mexico City! Mexico City! Mexico City! Mexico City Caribbean beach, blue wave, Far across the ocean there is a great country! A cheerful people live there, They eat mushrooms and cacti, and they dance and sing! ” cried the alarm clock.

"Shut up you!" I shouted, turning off the hellish device.

"Masha, get up faster, or you’ll be late for school!" I heard a pleasant voice from my kitchen from my mother.

“Yeah,” I muttered, not even about to get out of the heated bed. Let this school go to hell! My person wants to sleep, so she will sleep! My eyes closed again, and a wonderful dream began to arise in his head.

The sun was shining brightly in the sky, curly clouds slowly floated. Nearby there was the sound of the sea surf and the cry of seagulls. What a beauty! The waves eagerly licked the sandy shore, leaving behind only white foam. Small boats loomed on the horizon. But then someone blocked my sun.

"Hey, get away!" I screamed, taking off my sunglasses.

"Excuse me, my lady. Would you like a cool drink?" a tall male figure in a tailcoat was holding a tray of Coca-Cola in his hands. The guy smiled sweetly. A sultry wind waved his black hair. “I will not refuse,” I smiled coquettishly in response, but then recognized Sebastian Mikaelis in the man. Sea, sun, heat, summer and a favorite character. Eh, the soul rushed to paradise!

"Masha, Masha, Masha!" the demon began to shake my shoulders, "you will be late for school! Get up immediately!"

I closed my eyes, then opened. The colorful world was smeared and disappeared after a second, as if it had not existed at all. My small room appeared before me.

"Masha! Didn’t you hear me ?! Get up immediately!" mom started to get angry. In general, she is a very kind person by nature, but it’s better not to abuse it if you don’t want to get to a soft spot!

"But, Mom, another five minutes," I muttered, turning over onto the other side, "Sebastian is waiting for me there, the sea, seagulls ... .."

Without ceremony, my mother tore off my favorite blanket.

"No! I will not survive in this harsh, cold world without my charm!"

"Go have breakfast!"

Life is pain. I instantly felt cold. Definitely I needed to close the damn window. First, I hung one foot from the bed, then the second, and finally, taking a sitting position. A sign appeared in front of my eyes, “Your brain is loading, please wait.” After a few seconds, it was replaced by a running circle.

"Masha!" Mom’s next appeal has accelerated loading.

     I got out of bed, staggering a little. After yesterday's physical education, the whole body ached terribly. Each movement caused discomfort and even pain, from which it was too lazy to move. So why make the girls run, push up and squat until they lose heart rate? We are not going to the army. I do not understand!

I went into the kitchen, instantly flopping down on a chair. Everything was floating before my eyes, but I managed to recognize my mother, who was frying something on the old stove. The table was next to the window. Yes, the view was poor. From our sixth floor, it was hard to make out anything except yellowed trees and thick fog. No guys, I want to go back to the beach to my Sebastian! The clock hanging on the wall showed 07.55. Wow, I’ve been knocked out for 20 minutes! Mom put in front of me a plate of hot fried eggs. Breakfast proceeded in silence. My mother watched the morning news release, and I sleepily picked a fork in food and tried to reproduce in my thoughts a beautiful dream. I wish I could visit the Phantomhive Estate!

"You look like a zombie of the third freshness! Again, I suppose, you watched late cartoons ?!"

"Mom, how many times can I say - this is not cartoons, this is anime," I still said lazily.

"Not comics, this is manga," the woman parodied me, "but I don’t see much difference! When will you start to get enough sleep ?!"

“Don't start,” I rolled my eyes. After the divorce from dad, mom became too nervous.

"How do you talk with your mother ?! And don’t roll your eyes! I’ll turn off the Internet for you, you’ll only go to the Internet when you study! And you’ll go to bed at ten!”

"Why are you starting this again !?" my sleepy body was annoyed by any trifle, as well as these cries, "don’t command me! I’m already an adult, and I myself can decide what time I go to bed!"

I jumped from the table and went into the room. How all makes me angry! I was a little ashamed that I yelled at my mother, but, in the end, she herself was to blame! What have I done? What nonsense. It took quite a bit of time to pack things. A white blouse and a plaid skirt hung on a chair, and the briefcase was staffed yesterday. I brushed my teeth, gathered brown hair in a ponytail, dressed and ran out of the apartment. Already beyond the threshold, it dawned on me that my glasses remained on the table. But I did not want to return home. Entering the elevator, I chewed my lip nervously. Without glasses, I’ll somehow interrupt, only one more important detail was not completed. My offended person did not bother to kiss my mother for goodbye. This was a special gesture that brought me a good luck. I felt even more ashamed, but pride did not allow me to return. If I only knew what would happen to me in a few minutes, I would definitely apologize to my mother, kiss her and hug her. But, unfortunately, (or to joy?) People do not know how to look into the future. Therefore, building myself insulted person to the depths of my soul, I flew out of the entrance. Before my eyes, everything was blurry, and even a dull fog reduced the range of visibility. My legs carried me to the road. Immersed in thoughts of a morning quarrel, I did not notice a red traffic signal and continued on my way along a busy highway. A nasty buzzer rang a few meters away. The green monster swept at me at tremendous speed. I did not have time to really get scared, I just closed my eyes. It seems that at such moments all life should fly by. At least that's what they write in books and shown in films. But the only thought stuck in my head - today I did not kiss my mother ...

[askthecivilian]

Splint Ends

(or Laptop’s official story submission this semester and thinly veiled Omega/Civilian fanfiction)

Christa hadn't realized she liked girls until she met Alex.

Perhaps “met” is too simple of a word.

Christa hadn’t realized she like girls until, on an early morning in Brooklyn, she bulldozed straight through an unsuspecting woman, mid-stride, after not looking where she was going and knocked them both flat on the slightly damp concrete.

She had apologized profusely, helping the other woman to her feet. A quick smile, then off she ran, ignoring the fluttering feeling in her chest. Couldn’t be late. She had barely gotten this secretary job as is.

The next day she promptly almost did it again, but the blonde woman quickly side-stepped and winked, humor lighting up her countenance. Christa just about died of embarrassment but ran on, the heat in her cheeks mixing with the pink flush the chill air whipped up. How the other woman was wearing shorts and a t-shirt in the autumn chill, she had no idea.

It took her a month of running past her on the same route to work up the courage to talk to her. “Alex,” she learned.

It took another month of casual talk and quick meet-ups on the street to agree to meet more often.

Three months later, Christa realized she was completely and totally in love.

The moment her boss realized, she was quickly and quietly fired from her job.

Christa hadn’t realized that her existence was a dirty thing that needed to be kept secret until she met Alex.

----

Love had always been a strange but familiar concept to Alex.

She loved to run. She loved to live. She loved fresh snow and warm drinks and good cuts of meat.

But she didn’t usually apply love to a person. She wasn’t even sure if she loved herself.

She did like herself. She was scruffy and that was that.

She was sure that her love could be given to anyone if she liked them enough too.

She also knew people thought that was wrong.

Alex had learned from a very young age, in a very small family, in a very small town, in the middle of New Mexico that being a woman, liking women, loving women, and being scruffy were all considered bad things.

Alex decided from a very young age that people were the worst.

Not Christa, though.

---

Christa was good in a way most people never were, Alex thought. She was the type of person that learned your favorite food just to take you to lunch. She’d run odd errands for people with only their gratitude as payment and give what money she made as a secretary at the local publishing house to those who had even less.

Alex thought she was a Woman, with a capital W. Tall and willowy, blue eyes and a shy grin and short black curls that she pinned back behind her ears.

Alex thought she was beautiful and everything she wasn’t.

Christa still had her parents and still had her choice. A choice that Alex’s parents had made for her.

That was fine, though. She would wait for Christa to make her choice.

So when Christa came home one day with a broken look and told her- “I lost my job,” Alex felt horribly furious and horribly guilty and horribly selfish.

---

Alex was bad in a way people never embraced, Christa thought.

She took glee in breaking norms and rules and expectations, but never in a harmful way.

She was the type of person who shoplifted bread and water bottles to take to a friend she’d made living on a street corner. She fed crumbs to pigeons and crows, pet every stray dog or cat she could find and constantly went barefoot in establishments, all with the same rascally grin.

She was unkempt and kept her hair in long golden tangles that Christa gently chided her over. She hated the constraints of “women’s clothing” and had shunned bras and dresses alike altogether. She embraced the new age with open arms and eagerly took to New York and the chaos it enveloped and the change it promised like a mutt to a muddy puddle.

She was so comfortable in being herself that Christa envied her. She was a wild force of nature.

And Christa didn’t know how she had gotten so lucky to have her.

---

There were worse places to live than New York.

Sure, the weather was usually awful and traffic was hellish and the concrete jungle was generally  underwhelming to fault. But Christa knew the streets of Brooklyn like the back of her hand, and the rough calluses and contours of Alex’s hand as well as her well-trod paths of the streets.

Snow was heavy this year and their walk back to their apartment from a rare breakfast out was cold and slushy, both women bundled up, Christa significantly more so than Alex.

“I don’t get it,” Christa complained, blowing on her fingers. “You were born in New Mexico. How are you not cold?!”

Alex grinned up at her, breath misting around her face, and stole one of her mitten-ed hands, letting the warmth seep back into the cloth and chilled flesh as she held it.

“Warm blooded, I guess.”

Few people were out, most of them sensible and avoiding tramping about in the middle of December. The paused on a street corner, a newspaper stand close by, making Christa’s face pinch a bit in a bad memory before smoothing the bitterness away.

“Did you hear about the APA ruling?”

Another pair was out, two young men leaning around the newspaper stand, shuffling feet and making small talk to keep warm. Christa absentmindedly listened in as she scanned over the days headlines.

“The one about homos? Yeah. What a load of shit, huh? Faggots will be breeding like crazy now.” The taller one laughed, making a crude hand gesture through his neat leather gloves. “Not a mental illness, my ass.”

Christa’s heart stuttered. She stared at the blurred black and white paper in front of her, familiar pain bleeding up her throat. Alex’s hand froze in her grip as she went still as well, tense energy running down her arm.

“It ain’t natural,” the other agreed, nodding. The tips of his blonde hair curled over his coat collar. “They gonna ask us to fuck dogs next?”

Their dual laughter was raucous and chilling in their genuine amusement.

Alex moved just as the original speaker began his next story, of the “she-male” he’d “shown the light to” behind the bar on 5th. She pulled Christa onwards with quick, seething strides, away from ignorance and hatred that she couldn’t truly protect her from, no matter how hard she tried.

Christa had cried on the day the ruling came out, in their local gay bar, filled to the brim with exuberant cheer and good friends as they celebrated the small victory. Now, she felt like crying for an entirely different reason.

She felt small and afraid.

Christa didn’t hold Alex’s hand the rest of the way home.

---

“Have you ever thought about putting a little more effort into how you look? Lean your head forwards.”

Alex hummed noncommittally as she complied. “What, beyond this haircut? Nah, not really. How short is it going?”

Christa chewed her lip thoughtfully, winding a thick golden lock through her fingers before gently snipping the dry and harsh ends.

“I was thinking to about here,” she said to Alex’s reflection, marking a spot on her mostly-bare collarbone with a light tap. The sun highlighted the movement of her fingers, streaming through the minuscule glass window. Early morning birds could be heard, including the old demanding crow that lived on the roof next to theirs and had learned to tolerate them because of the snacks they plied his favor with. “Long enough to pull back but it shouldn’t get in the way too much. And maybe you should.”

Alex snorted and twitched at the feeling of the comb running through some unchecked tangles.

“I’m serious! I’m not talking about getting dolled up on a regular basis. That’s not you, and I’d never try to change that.” Christa brushed a few fallen clumps of hair off of the towel and let them fall to the floor to be swept up later. Alex really had a thick head of hair that practically overtook her small frame when allowed to roam free and wild as per her usual style.

“But-” she hesitated, lowering the scissors momentarily and resting her hand on Alex’s head. “I know that sometimes it's hard to be yourself.” She ran her fingers through her own thick black curls and met Alex’s eyes in the spotty reflection of the old mirror they shared in their apartment. “Especially when the world doesn’t want us to be ourselves. And sometimes… well it makes me feel better to change to person in the mirror when it feels like I can’t change anything else.”

Alex sighed and caught Christa’s hand as she raised the scissors again to return to her work. “I’m not going anywhere, Bambi.”

“I know! I just- I don’t want to lose you.”

“Hey,” Alex twisted in the chair, reaching up to gently embrace Christa’s face, frowning when she bit her lip and glanced away.  Alex’s voice was low and almost feral as she said her piece.

“The world can go fuck themselves. I love you. And you know me,” she huffed wryly for a moment. “ I don’t say that lightly.”

Christa nodded silently, gently turning Alex’s head back to the front so she could tug some more snarls out of her hair, the roughness of the strokes betraying her tumultuous feelings on the conversation.

“Do you ever regret it?” she asked. Her voice was barely above a whisper, the broad tones of her home city mingling with the stillness of outside. Brooklyn and New Mexico were an odd mix, but Alex thought they were fitting.

She and Christa were like that. The hustle and bustle and the vast spaces of nothingness, intertwined. City and wilderness. Christa, on one of the very few times she had let Alex get her drunk, had compared the two of them in that way.

“You’re like my wolf,” she had giggled, barely remembering to speak English through the cheap vodka Alex had stolen from a friend of hers. “My pretty blonde wolf, hunting the poor little deer. You caught me so… so fast!”

“Does that make you a literal Bambi Lesbian?” Alex had cackled in return. And Christa had laughed, tossing her head back, the soft pale skin of her neck and shoulders exposed and gleaming in the dim fluorescent lighting of their apartment.

It had not been the first, or the last time Alex had kissed her, but it perhaps was one of the more memorable.

“It’s 1973, Alex. We’re living in the modern day and-” here Christa’s voice cracked, a hairline fracture in her steady speech “-and I’m terrified. I’m afraid of what could happen- to me, to you, to anyone else we know. Jane got in a fight last week on the way home because someone jumped Ludwig on his way home. And you heard about the murders further down south.”

Her hands slowly gripped through the hair on Alex’s scalp, just shy of painful.

“Why is it wrong to be us?”

Alex hesitated, taking care to gently form her words before releasing them.

“Well, what do you believe?”

Christa’s fingers stilled.

“What?”

“What do you believe?” Alex asked again, trying to keep the steel out of her tone. She hated the world sometimes, hated that religion was so often used to justify hatred over differences. Hated that being different because of who and how you loved was something they saw people being killed over. “You’re Jewish. What does your faith give you about homosexuality?”

The silence was palpable, filtered only by the occasional rough caw out the window.

“We believe that we all deserve love,” Christa whispered. “And that we are not responsible for that in which we had no choice. Everyone deserves that much.”

Faith is difficult. You are not always what you believe. But, maybe sometimes you can believe in who you are.

Alex turned in her seat, ignoring the wet sheen in Christa’s eyes as she wrapped her arms around her, trying to put all the emotions that she didn't know how to word into that simple touch.

“I guess it’s easier for me,” Alex admitted into the shoulder of Christa’s shirt. “I only see the world as plainly as it appears.” She pulled back momentarily and gestured at the sunlight making dappled patterns on the faded tile. “I see the sun and the sky, the trees and the animals, and I see us in them. And if they exist, why can’t we? How could loving you-” she gripped her girlfriend tighter- “be wrong?”

Christa’s head was bowed, dark curls brushing Alex’s nose as her breathing hitched quietly with all the emotions she was swallowing.

“I… don’t understand your God,” Alex admitted rather awkwardly. She shook her head, mussing both her hair and her thoughts. “ But what about Jeremy? Or V? Jessica? We’ve gone to parties with them. I’ve had way too many drinks with Illystria and caught pigeons with Joseph and watched Mari punch and kiss her husband in the same minute. We’re just people, Christa. We do exist. We’ve found our people here.” She bit her lip, wistful smile creeping its way up her face. “Maybe today is not the best. But… there’s always tomorrow. Look how far we’ve come from Stonewall. From just this year!” Alex pulled Christa closer, gently pressing their foreheads together. “The world is what it is. I’m just grateful I’ve found a place to be myself in.”

Because it’s with you, was the phrase neither of them needed to say.

Christa’s laugh was watery.

“I haven’t ever told my parents yet.”

“When you do, I’ll be here right besides you.”

And just like that, the tension in the bathroom broke and washed away like the icy runoff that spilled from frozen rivers after spring had spread her warm wings over the mountain’s peak.

Christa’s hands were warm and solid on the small of her back.

Quick fingers momentarily tugged Alex’s shirt before sweeping her hair off to the side.

“We really do need to get you some non-shredded clothes, though.”

“What’s wrong with my clothes?”

“Schatz, there's holes in everything. Didn’t this shirt use to be pink?

Alex pouted theatrically, earning a slight giggle from Christa as she ruffled the blond bangs still falling unchecked into her face. “You’re picking on me today…”

Christa pressed a quick kiss to her forehead, smiling.

“What, me? Never.”

---

It took time. Change and acceptance are precious gems that are to be cherished and allowed to grow.

But then there was one Hanukkah in a small house in Brooklyn.

“Chag Urim Sameach, Mama und Papa. This is my girlfriend, Alex.”

People mentioned in this story! Because I couldn’t resist.

The Civilian: mine

The Omega: @teamfortressaswell

The Pilot (Jessica): @jessicapilot

The Contractor (V): @marveloustf2

The Helper (Illystria): @askhelper

The Pigeoneer (Joseph): @gwalleyvv

The Melee and the Mafia (Mari and her husband): @tangy-original-sunny-d

[fadingfartconnoisseur]

All of the July Elevenths

God bless Facebook. This platform has given me so much — the ability to get back in touch with long-lost friends, the ability to stay in touch with faraway and travel friends, and a collection of photos that I treasure.

But I especially love Facebook Memories — looking back and seeing what you were doing one, two, five, or ten years ago.

Recently Facebook Memories gave me such a cross-section of statuses and photos shared on July 11th of every year since 2007, and it made me stop and think. My life has changed so much from year to year, especially when it comes to my career and finances.

I’d love to share these days with you and show you how my life has changed over time.

On July 11th in 2016, I was in Johannesburg. Beth and I were exploring the city in style. We went to the top of the tallest building in South Africa, noting the bullet hole and taking a selfie with a strangely placed nutcracker. We rode the new, modern Gautrain across the city and nearly got in trouble with security for bringing our green juices on board. We got a cheeky Nando’s and drank $9 glasses of Veuve Cliquot in our hotel bar. And just after that, we jumped on a plane to Kruger National Park for a few days of wildlife-spotting.

The good: When you’re able to take your best friend to Africa on business class flights, as well as a stay in one of your favorite boutique hotels in the world, that is pretty much the definitive sign that you have MADE IT. Also, once you’ve gone business class, you’re forever changed.

This trip was also a reminder of how important it is to pick the right travel companions. I happen to love Johannesburg, but I know that most of my non-travel-blogger friends would be scared of it or hate it. Beth is exactly the kind of person who would enjoy it — open-minded, optimistic, and eager to mine a lesser-loved city for gold.

The bad: I’d be in crisis a few days later when a large check I had received for a campaign a week ago had suddenly been recalled. This left a grand total of $40 in my bank account. My bank had already processed and finalized the check, which is what made this crazy; this only happened because the sending bank had been hit by fraud and had recalled all outgoing payments of the last two weeks for security reasons.

Let me tell you, it’s less than pleasant calling your client over Skype on a tenuous internet connection from the middle of the bush in Limpopo Province. “You need to pay me by bank transfer, and you need to do it today,” I said firmly. They complied.

On July 11th in 2015, I was in Berat, Albania. For the fourth summer in a row, I was exploring the Balkans and hitting up some places I hadn’t seen before. I was staying in a nice hotel room for $18 per night and marveling at how the town was dead during the day but hundreds if not thousands of people were out during sunset. I had just spent a week chilling out in the resort town of Saranda; next up was Tirana, a city I would fall in love with immediately.

The good: I was traveling on my own terms. I look back at 2015 as when I was at peak travel — I was earning enough money to go wherever I wanted and didn’t have an apartment to pay for at home, so I was free to spend, spend, spend. I met up with tons of different blogger friends throughout Europe, hit up my first music festival, and even spent a few days with a ghost in Montenegro.

The bad: It felt a little too carefree — and that wasn’t right. I realize that’s a good problem to have. By mid-2015, I felt like I had been eating nothing but candy for the past year. I didn’t want to be the kind of person who backpacks and parties for years on end, chasing the sun and forever hitting on 25-year-olds. It was time to put down some roots. I would move to New York the following February.

In July 2014, I was in London. I actually have no clue what specifically happened on July 11th, as I had no Facebook posts from that day, but I have posts from the surrounding days and can figure out what happened then. I had just gotten home from Slovenia a few days before and was gearing up for Finland next. I was so exhausted from my travels that my London time had been spent catching up on rest.

The good: Major money was finally coming in, and consistently. I had finally cracked affiliate marketing and passive income on a large scale. I was getting paid for several blog campaigns as well. I was still in feast-or-famine mode, though, so I took on as much work as I could. In the past two months I had done paid campaigns in Malta, Ireland, Croatia, and Slovenia; in the next month and a half I would do paid campaigns in Finland, Italy, and Germany, plus unpaid trips to France and Norway.

I could pay for half of an apartment in a nice neighborhood in London and also have money to go out to dinner with friends, to take trips to cool places, to have a life. It had been so long since I had had that.

The bad: This was the darkest and most terrifying time of my life. I’ve been very careful about what I’ve revealed over the years. Part of that is because I deserve privacy. Part of that is because I’m still embarrassed. I’m still not sure exactly how much I’ll ever reveal.

Perhaps it’s best to illustrate with an anecdote from around that time.

I was cooking dinner and accidentally touched my wrist to the broiler in the oven. It burned. Immediately on autopilot, I went to the sink and ran it under cool water. And my only thought was, Please, God, please don’t let him notice that the water’s been running a long time.

It took a lot of time and more courage that I thought I had — but I got out. The only permanent scar is the brown line on my wrist.

On July 11th in 2013, I was in Istanbul. It was my second trip to the city but first trip during the summer (not to mention Ramadan), and it was like visiting a completely different city. I took a ferry to the Asian side for the first time, eating my way through Kadikoy and going to a real hammam with no tourists in sight. I wandered the colorful streets of Armenian Kumkapi. I gorged myself on iftar dinner specials, eating just before sunset to avoid the crowds.

The good: Things felt right. I had been nervous about spending so much time in Europe, but now that I was in Istanbul, it would be time for a lot of cheaper travel. And no more worries about spending too much time in the UK.

The bad: I worried a lot about money. My work was tenuous, and at one point I was owed $9,000 by various companies that didn’t pay on schedule. In the following weeks, I went through one of the toughest work periods of my life — trying to copy-edit a doctoral thesis into British English (!!) in 100-degree Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria, a town where I could have internet access or air conditioning, but not both. I chose internet, frantically Googling British spellings while mopping down my face with a towel.

Why had I taken on work like this? Self-employment was feast or famine. I had to take every job I could, when I could, because if I didn’t, I could end up broke. Especially with such a long and complicated trip ahead.

Looking back, I have no clue how I survived before having regular income streams.

On July 11th in 2012, I was in the middle of one of the longest, craziest journeys of my life, from Munich to New York. I had recently done the math and realized that I was about to exceed my permitted six months in the UK over the course of the year. A stern immigration experience after coming back from the Faroe Islands only exacerbated that. So I had to get out after my trip to Munich — but the only place where I could really afford to be was at home in the US.

At the time, the travel concierge site FlightFox had launched and I had a coupon to try them out for free. I had to fly home to my parents in Boston or my sister in New York, so I gave them those options and someone came up with a hellish but very cheap journey: I would have to stay up all night in Munich then get a very early flight to Lisbon, a layover for a few hours, a flight to Toronto, another layover of several hours, then an overnight bus to New York.

My sister had just moved to Hamilton Heights, and I brought her some packaged pasteis de nata from Lisbon Airport. Three and a half years later, I would be living just four blocks away.

The good: I learned one of my favorite travel hacks ever — act crazy and nobody will want to be around you. I spent my spare hour in Toronto wandering around Kensington Market and grabbed a banh mi on my way back. After getting onto the bus, not having slept for 48 hours and praying nobody would sit next to me, it hit me — why was I trying to eat my sandwich neatly? I should have done the opposite!

I hiked up my shirt and stuck my belly out, curving my back like a hunchback. I loudly munched my banh mi and scattered crumbs all over the place. I made my eyes extra big and laughed randomly.

The result? The bus was almost full, but nobody sat next to me. I lay down across my two seats like a cockroach, knees and elbows in the air, and I actually got several hours of sleep.

The bad: I was tough, but that was an awful journey. Staying up all night long followed by traveling all day followed by an overnight bus. An extra-long day due to the time change, plus the extremely long public transportation journey from the airport to downtown Toronto. And to think that I could have done a simple eight-hour direct flight from Munich to New York. Or even a reasonable flight via Dublin or Reykjavik.

And I hated having British immigration constantly hanging over my head. I needed to find a solution, and short of getting married, I wasn’t sure a solution existed.

On July 11th in 2011, I was at home in Massachusetts and plotting my next steps. After my six-month trip to Southeast Asia, I had always envisioned going to Korea and teaching English for a year. Korea is probably the easiest country in which to save a lot of money while teaching.

Things had changed, though. I was making money through my blog. I had an English boyfriend. And on that day in July, anglophilia reigned supreme. I posted about the royal wedding celebrations I attended in England (everyone there had the day off) and the Beckhams had just revealed that they named their baby girl Harper.

I was flabbergasted. The Beckhams gave their older kids names after where they were conceived (Brooklyn in New York, Romeo in Milan, Cruz in Madrid), and I had sworn up and down that their L.A. baby was going to be little Beverly Beckham.

In the coming days, I would decide to head back to Europe, crash with my boyfriend in England for a bit, and head to Austria for the TBU conference. I had no idea what would happen after that — but that decision changed everything.

The good: A few months at home was exactly the rest I needed. Those months in Southeast Asia were among the craziest of my life. I needed time to regroup and feel normal again, especially since I was dealing with recurring stress related to the shipwreck. I also got to indulge in perks from blogging, like a free movie tour in Boston, where I got to bring my friend Lisa along (pictured above at the Good Will Hunting bar).

The bad: I didn’t know if I could sustain it financially. I was winging it. In fact, I would continue to wing it for the next few years. I made a lot of bad decisions around that time, including paying for an expensive flight in order to go to a comped retreat, but at least that taught me what not to do in the future.

In July 2010, I was in hardcore work-and-save-so-you-can-get-out mode. I had already decided I was going to quit the job I hated and backpack Southeast Asia for several months. My tickets had already been purchased — I would fly to Bangkok in late October and come back in May. Nobody at work had a clue. And I had to save up as much money as humanly possible and thus cut myself off from virtually everything.

It wasn’t a completely ascetic summer, though. I spent time hanging out with friends, including a memorable day trip to Maine to eat my favorite seafood chowder and butter-soaked hot lobster roll at the Maine Diner.

The good: I was putting away insane amounts of money each month — and I was the skinniest I have ever been as an adult. The only problem was that I got there by virtually starving myself. I think the lowest I got was around 115 pounds, which for me was both scary-skinny and unsustainable, but I ended up maintaining at around 120-122 or so.

The bad: I was losing my mind. I would wake up at 6 in my downtown Boston apartment, take the subway and two buses to work in the suburbs, spend nine hours at a job I hated, come home, eat a 200-calorie Trader Joe’s eggplant parm, watch an episode of Family Guy, and then work hard on my blog and freelance work until 2:00 AM. I was a wreck and spent my weekends catching up on sleep. I could manage that for a few months at 25 but I know I couldn’t at 32.

The Lessons

It’s so easy to look back and think about the “good old days,” that things always used to be better in the past — but we know that isn’t true. Looking back at these past years, it’s clear that I was always dealing with difficulties even when times were otherwise good.

If I were happy in my life, I’d be struggling financially. Once the money started coming in, my personal life would take a nosedive. And if something in my life started going far better than usual, it was a guarantee that something would go far worse!

If I could talk to my past selves, this is what I would say:

To 2016 Kate: I hate to say it, but in 2017 you’ll still be getting surprised by checks from companies who swore they would pay you by direct deposit. It will be much better once you get a PO Box, though.

To 2015 Kate: Your inertia will soon end. You were wise to recognize it for what it was. I’m glad you enjoyed that trip and even more glad it was your last hurrah of nomadic life.

To 2014 Kate: It’s almost over. You’re about to find out how many people love you, respect you, and will fight for you. You’ll cry when friends you haven’t spoken to for years will tell you that they were praying for you.

To 2013 Kate: Trust me, you’re not going to have to take on projects like that in the future. Just one year until you crack passive income and say sayonara to crappy freelance work.

To 2012 Kate: Don’t worry, you’re never going to have to do a journey like that again because you can’t afford a normal flight.

To 2011 Kate: A lot of people thought you had balls to quit your job to travel the world, but I think this was far more ballsy — barely making enough money to live but deciding to go for it anyway. You made a good choice, and it will get easier, I promise.

To 2010 Kate: Your hard work is going to be worth it. But you already know that. Oh, and it will take you a long time to lose the weight again, but you will, and next time you will do it in a much healthier way.

So where am I now?

My July 11, 2017, was both ordinary and representative of where I am now.

It was a day for Harlem. I dove into a package filled with delicious goods made by Harlem entrepreneurs. I dropped by The Monkey Cup, one of my favorite local coffeeshops, and celebrated their second birthday. I chatted with my neighbors, some of whom have lived on my street for 30 years. I laughed at the sight of a newly thrown out Christmas tree (IN JULY!), so brown and dry it was almost red.

It was a day for work. I planned out my upcoming trip to the Florida Keys, answered a million emails, researched travel plans for the fall, shared a picture of Père Lachaise on Instagram to my just-hit-100k following, and dropped by the New York office of an agency I worked with recently.

It was a day for fashion. I got a peach-and-white-striped romper from my stylist at Trunk Club, literally the first romper I have ever worn since I was a kid, and decided to keep it and wear it that day. And hilariously, a lady on the street in Brooklyn called out, “Hey, you don’t have to strip down in the bathroom!” to me and handed me a card advertising a romper on it that lets you pee without having to take the whole thing off!

It was a day for nostalgia. I got lunch at Panera. Which will always remind me of high school. And if I’m not getting a Greek salad, I’m getting the watermelon feta salad, which they only have during the summer.

It was a day for friends and fun. I met up with a friend I hadn’t seen since college graduation, who himself became a backpacker and traveled the world for a few years. We got oysters and drinks in Brooklyn Heights, then played bocce — my first time ever.

And no, it wasn’t all good. Summer 2017 may have been one of the best work periods of my life, but I was also dealing with a nasty issue behind the scenes on the 11th — the single most malicious attack my site has ever received. An attack that baffled several different tech professionals for weeks and hurt my income. Thankfully, it has since been cleared up.

But that just goes to show that it’s never all good — ever. The important thing is that I’m staying content even when parts of my life aren’t going well. Looking at the past seven July Elevenths, I can see that I’ve grown, I’ve learned, and I’m applying the lessons I’ve learned over the years.

And I realize just how much I have yet to learn. Who knows where I’ll be on July 11, 2018? 2019? 2030? I have no clue, but I know I’ll be okay.

What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned over the years?

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