Admitting that I live here

When I moved to San Diego, I registered to vote, and I registered my car there, and got a CA driver's license. I was going to be a responsible citizen, and besides which, that was my new community, and I was going to be a part of it. But I found that every time I pulled out my CA driver's license, I felt like a fraud. I was not a Californian. When the time rolled around to vote on ballot measures and local candidates, I took a look through the voter guide, didn't recognize anyone or anything in it, and threw it away, failing to vote for the first time since I turned 18 and was legally able. As much as I grew to love San Diego, it was just a place I was living, not where I really lived. I realized that as far as I was concerned, I was still an Oregonian.

So then when I moved to Washington, I went ahead and registered my car here (because it is the law), but I didn't bother getting a Washington driver's license, didn't register to vote, and didn't make any real effort to become a Washingtonian. But now I'm creeping up on 2 years since leaving Eugene, and I have been starting to realize that I can't pretend like I still live in Oregon for the rest of my life. In the back of my mind I've had the idea that I will wait until we are "settled," with permanent jobs, and a house, before I bother trying to connect to a new place. But we really don't know where we are going to end up long-term, or when we will be "settled" somewhere. So, mentally, I've been sort of homeless.

Well, we expect to be in Seattle for another year and a half or so, and with no specific plans yet for after that, we very well might end up being here longer. So I'm coming to terms with the fact that maybe I actually live here, and maybe I should start acting like it.

As a first step, on Saturday, Jeff and I went to our local Seattle public library branch (walkable distance from our house), and got library cards. It felt like a big step. As soon as I can find time during DMV hours, I'm going to go replace my CA driver's license (I feel like even more of a fraud with that one now) with a WA one. If I want to work on living in the moment, I also need to work on admitting that I live in this city, and this state.

So, here are a couple of pictures of this city I live in, that I took on my phone while biking home from work on Friday. These are some of the lovely views along my bike commute, loveliest on sunny days, which are more and more frequent as it starts to actually be spring: