Two Years in Vermont
Time flies when you’re living in a Hallmark movie fever dream! Two years ago this week, I up and moved my sorry ass to Vermont. Two years! Thats exactly the amount of time I spent working in Atlanta. The same amount of time I spent in New York. Vermont feels both shorter and much longer. It’s a weird thing to move someplace when its not connected with a job, or relationship, or to be closer to friends. I moved here to be nearer myself. Which, whoo boy, I would NOT recommend. Not if there is even the slightest chance that you might be a shithead. Because, I kinda suck, and its been a lot of introspection and intense feelings. A lot of MORGAN. Too much Morgan, to be honest. I apologize to anyone who’s had to spend long amounts of time with me, because I’m a fucking piece of work! But I moved here, and in true Morgan fashion, even when its been intense and awful, I just dig my damn heels in and commit to this nonsense. Because if you’re going to change your life based on a fucking Nancy Meyers movie from 1987, you gotta be willing to go big and double down.
There wasn’t much of a real plan when I moved to Vermont. I think I assumed I’d stay here a year, tops. And for some incredibly misguided reason, I thought I could get my shit together in that amount of time. That the relocation and nature and quaintness would allow me to just, VOILA! Be a functional human being again. That somehow, after ingesting Maple Syrup and watching the leaves change colors, everything would fall into place. I’d lose weight. Learn to sleep. Knock out a children’s book or two. Learn to love myself. Get well and deeply fucked by handsome fellas who knew how to chop wood and like, back country ski or something. And then I’d laugh and say ,“WHAT AN ADVENTURE THAT WAS!” And high tail it back to LA or New York, with everything figured out. I would say as far as plans go, thats been an abject disaster. Literally none of those things have happened. Not a one. Sure I got banged by a ski bum lawyer and it was alright, but it didn’t fuck me back to life, and I do not think he could chop wood, and said encounter required me to drive to fucking Rutland, VT - so that negates any positives out of that experience. So what I’m saying is, I failed. I failed at my Vermont experiment in such grand ways, in such incredibly disappointing ways, that its truly hard for me to quantify. Instead of losing weight, I maintained this fucking lardy physique. My insomnia is still there - comes in bouts - but I’m never, ever, able to seep through an entire night. Writing? HAAHAHA. Ok, so I did have a draft of a kids book, and then I swear to God, my new laptop, the one I bought after breaking the other laptop during a session of writing around magic candles broke, fucking crashed. I had to get a new motherboard and I lost everything. Like Carrie in Sex and the City. Then I finally get some momentum back, get some interest in this silly blog, and I up and go shatter my damn wrist. Nothing I wanted to have happen, happened. Not for lack of trying, no sir! I hired that personal trainer (who bilked me out of 6k and belittled me), but I did work out a ton. But the weight stayed on, sadly. And that self love? Well, thats not gone so well either. Have you ever stared at your reflection for so long that features stop making sense? Eye and noses and ears and flesh all seem like a Picasso painting. And then you think, how weird it is that our insides are kept inside just by flesh? BEING A HUMAN IS FUCKED UP! Well, thats what a lot of introspection will do. You start picking everything apart, and when you get down to it, its all a bit of a nightmare!!! So all and all, I don’t feel like I’ve accomplished anything other than amassing an insane amount of medical debt and learning to appreciate the natural color of my hair.
And yet….its not a total wash. I mean, in the immortal words of JC Wiatt, the Tiger Lady of Wall Street, and creator of Country Baby Applesauce - COUNTRY BABY IS NOT FOR SALE! The idea now of moving back to New York is unthinkable. LA? Thats a little trickier. I miss my friends. I miss my support -network. I miss being able to hang with Erin, watching Newsies and drinking wine. I miss Dodger Games. I miss the excitement of the entertainment industry - where you felt like you were collectively working towards something interesting. But thats also the way I’m remembering it - in reality I worked on some really amazing things, but I also worked on Battleship, ya know? And most of the interesting work I did is buried in the mire by all the bullshit I endured - late night travel insanity. Running all over creation for the kelp noodles or specific brand of kombucha they needed to function. I once bribed a fucking kids magician so that he’d perform at Harvey’s daughters birthday party on short notice!! Having to carry a fucking Nespresso maker in my backpack in case my boss wanted a coffee. That was an actual thing I had to do - I’m not kidding. Do you know how stupid you feel when you have to open up a giant backpack with a COFFEE MAKER inside of it, when you’re at a location that ALSO HAS A COFFEE MAKER? And I was in my mid-30s during most of this! All of my friends? They’re fucking settled. They own homes. They have careers. They are like, getting into meditation and mindfulness and health foods. And I’m flushing my bosses toilets behind them because they can’t be bothered. So while I miss my social life and my friends, that is not something I can go back to right now. It literally broke me. Though, I’m starting to wonder if I was ever really whole in the first place. So yeah, I mean. Right now Vermont, with its wholesomeness and four seasons (even though some last longer than others) doesn’t seem like the worst place to stay for a bit. In fact, I’ve actually started to make friends. And friends that aren’t directly connected to my job. That’s been an issue for me, where my social life is intertwined with my work life. But these are friends I’ve made on my own. I inadvertently joined a book club where i’m the only woman without kids. The text chains can be insane during the school year (it devolves from book recommendations and who is bringing the wine an cheese, to after school care and play dates) but I secretly love it! I meet my mom friends for coffee or wine. I listen to their problems and they listen to mine. I’ve befriended shop owners and local dogs. I visit the farmers market every single Saturday and buy myself an arrangement of flowers from the same vendor. One day I was running late because I coudln’t get away from work and they walked an arrangement over to me! The record store dudes will slip me a free album when I inquire about some random hit of the 80s they were playing. I wake up and feed the chipmunks that live beneath my deck and it brings me actual joy. And then I’ll put out the bird seed and wait for the chickadees to fly by me. And I’ll look in the backyard and see all that stupid squash I planted, and that too gives me joy. And sure the Winter can really be tough. And my Jeep is feeling the effects of driving hard on the brakes and requires new wheels. And I can get really lonely. And small town drama abounds once you’re part of the community. But, right now, this seems like someplace I’m supposed to be. For better or worse.
So, in honor of my second year in Vermont. Here’s two years in Vermont by the numbers:
Bottles of wine consumed while staring into the void and questioning everything: Honestly? Hundreds.
Whole Roast Chickens (including skeleton) Linus the dog ingested: 1
Ferret-faced trainers who bamboozled me out of 6k in order to cover their back-rent: 1
Boxes of kitty litter used to soak up raw sewage bubbling up in the basement/work: 13
Cost of two years worth of heating oil that is kept in a terrifying drum in the basement: $4,600
Times brakes locked traveling down snowy hill that caused me to think I was about to die: 30+
Hookups at a Rodeway Inn down at a ski town with a lawyer met on Tinder: 1
Days I’ve spent enduring my friends in LA roasting me for said encounter: >25
Violent falls in the snow/ice that lead me to denounce God: > 15
Violent falls that lead to a shattered risk, emergency surgery and a new bionic arm: 1
Being ghosted by a man who said he moved out of state when he actually still lives with your bosses ex husband up the street: 1
Crushes on big-dicked Hunks out of state: 2
Times I’ve embarrassed myself in front of the handsome farmer that does a pop-up market behind my place of employment: Literally every single time he’s been there.
Binge Rewatches of entire series: 12- Newhart/Frasier/Wings/Friday Night Lights/ Battlestar Galatica/X Files/Vanderpump Rules/Fortitude/Kimmy Schmidt/ The UK Office/ The Mighty Boosh/ Spaced
Times I watched Baby Boom: > 15
Times I’ve sobbed in the dark seriously questioning everything: > 20
Nights where Sleep Paralysis has lead me to believe my house might be actually a little haunted: 3
Trick or Treaters at my door: 1
Times I’ve accidentally driven down a VAST trail and only realized it wasn’t a rode after having to drive through a creek: 1
Times people warned me I’d be mistaken for a Moose while hiking, so I should wear orange (which is RUDE!): 4
Black Bears seen frolicking: 5
Moose seen: 0!
Hikes in subzero temps that have lead me to question my own sanity: 13
Hikes in the beautiful Vermont wilderness that made me grateful to be alive: 20
I have no idea what the rest of this year will bring. I’m honestly terrified. I feel like I’m either going to get struck by lightning or I’ll win the lottery. There doesn’t seem to be an in-between for me. But, I’m here. And the weather is turning. And the mornings are crisp again. And tonight I’ll rewatch Baby Boom in honor of this anniversary. Then I’ll crawl into bed, cradling my inhaler and a cheesy romance novel, with two dogs curled up at my feet, and get ready for another day of work in the morning. And while its not exciting for me. And I feel stifled in a lot of ways. And there’s definitely no incredibly sexy Vet/Mayor hybrid that is lurking around, ready to woo me and bang me back into the land of the living. There’s also no Harvey. And no backpacks full of Nespresso makers. Or late night phone calls belittling me and questioning my intelligence. Or emails saying my trip to Cannes has been cancelled because I didn’t have the right “look” to be seen with my boss. So yeah, it may not be great most of the time, but it definitely could be worse.