After a day that started with a dress rehearsal at 8:30 and continued with two concerts and an evening preparing for my trip, I am exhausted but very happy with the day. The concerts went well. I think that most artists are perfectionists and I know that there were parts of the concerts that could have sounded better, but we sang in churches and not in concert halls, and I think that the audience enjoyed the performance. And it was so much fun! I love singing folk music and I love singing with orchestras, and this concert involved both. Finally, I am glad that I pushed myself to sing in the quartette that opened the concert, despite being very nervous about it and feeling immensely insecure. I am not a soloist. Duets, quartettes, etc, are normally fine, but this one was a little difficult and it’s been years since I did more serous singing, so for while, I was ready to let someone else take the part. But it is only by challenging ourselves that we grow, so I decided to go through with it. It went fine of course and I grew in confidence. Will post the video once it’s on youtube.

The cute folk costume that I wore for the concert, which my choir leader Kerstin had made. Not sure what part of Sweden it is from though…

My birthday week continued with another gift arriving from the World’s Sweetest Mia-Lotta. Birthday dinner a day later with Monika (who was out traveling last week) at a French bistro, one of my favorite neighborhood restaurants. A very good week!

A Swedish girl that I sing with gave me a ride to the choir the other day, and during the drive, we talked about what we had done before ending up in DC. Since my story involves clear goals and a lot of moving around, she asked me what I wanted to do next. I didn’t have an answer.

I then chatted with a friend of mine who has been posted in South Sudan for quite some time. He asked me how things were going in DC, and I had to admit that things here were exactly the same as when he left little over a year ago. NOTHING has changed! While I’ve been painfully aware of this for quite some time, my life felt all of a sudden immensely dull.

The problem is that even though I haven’t settled as well in Washington as I did in the other places where I’ve lived, I am also not sure where I would go. For the first time in my life, I don’t have clear plan for the next couple of years. Or rather, the plan that I thought I had proved to be completely beyond my control. Still, I want to give certain things here another chance before giving up on normal and stable. I also really enjoy my job and am very happy about my studies that are progressing exactly in the direction that I want. At the same time, I know that life can be so much more interesting and inspiring. Is this what happens when we get older? We let comfort take over? Did I grow out of my adventurousness? Or do I just feel more at home here than I think? Right now, it seems like my indecisiveness about what to do next means that I am staying here a while longer.

At the Sculpture Garden Café, one of my favorite spots in DC!

And so, I am a year older. Or technically just a day older every day, but as of Wednesday, I added a year to my age. I normally really like to celebrate my birthday properly, preferably with a big party, but this year I had a deadline my Food Policy program and not enough time to get it done before my b-day, so I spent the entire day in front of my computer. (And when I write the entire day, I literarily mean the entire day: I worked on it from 6 am to 11 pm that day!) While I at first was really disappointed that I missed out of celebrating my birthday and everything that I had planned for that day, I soon realized that did spend it on food policy, which is my greatest interest. Nevertheless, there are other components that make a birthday, like friends, cake, and gifts. An acquaintance of mine in Sweden posted a Facebook album around her last birthday called Birthday Week, so I thought I’d copy that idea! It started well enough: these past days, I’ve been celebrated both at my office and outside of work, gifts have dropped in, and I have more plans over the next couple of days. In Moldova, birthdays are really important, and while it is bad luck to celebrate before the birthday, it is OK to celebrate for up to three weeks after. I think one week will be enough in my case though, at least this year!

Some highlights from the past days: cake with a candle from a colleague, chocolate from another, a package in the mail from Felicia with the wonderful book Tuesdays with Morrie and a pretty bookmark (I love bookmarks!!), and a lovely lunch today at Café Leopold in Georgetown with Lucia. And I decided to finally get an i-phone, which I’ve wanted for years, plus found a t-shirt in my favorite pattern! And there are still three more days of this year’s birthday week!

While I am not sure it is altogether a bad thing, one of my more inconvenient sides is that I hate when people disappear out of my life. Not everyone, but people that I am close to, or that have been close to in the past. Geographical distances are fine (otherwise my adult life wouldn’t have been possible), and so is not having frequent contact, as long as I know that the people that I am close to are there somewhere. However, if I feel like people who are important to me are drifting away, I find it difficult to let go. The worst is when someone that I used to be close to, but have lost a little, moves to another place, because then I know that I will never have a chance to get back the relationship that we once had. Fortunately, it doesn’t happen that often.

Yesterday, I went to make a long overdue appointment with my hairdresser Bryce at a salon a block away from me. Apart from being amazingly cool (he looks more like a biker than a hairdresser!), Bryce is also the only hairdresser I have ever totally trusted. I know it is such a superficial thing, but I feel really vulnerable and exposed when someone cuts my hair. Except with Bryce, whom I completely trusted in whatever he suggested. I hadn’t been there since January, and when I came in yesterday, I was met by the news that Bryce had moved away a week ago. Not to another salon but to Florida! It came as a complete shock to me, and for some incomprehensible reason, I felt totally down for several hours after. I thought I’d get more jaded with age, but it seems like my separation anxiety is just getting worse. Is there any cure for this? Even I recognize that it’s a little ridiculous at this point!

And just to add to all my friends out there: I miss you lots!!!