Inertia

 I have a complicated relationship with St. Louis.

The city is nice enough. A great parks system. Museums. A top tier university. Decent food. A better-than-expected performing arts scene. Fun sports and faithful fans. Oddly loyal high school graduates. 

And an enormous inferiority complex. Which is weird since people from here who leave always seem to want to move back. I have now lived here for four years, and every time I tell someone we moved from Denver, the response is exactly the same.

"Why?"

C'mon, St. Louisans. Don't you know I need you to affirm my life choices?

I will say that my son's academic and extra-curricular experiences in our St. Louis County school district were probably better than they would have been at his Denver school. The parents and teachers here were warm and welcoming, and we'll forever be a grateful Greyhound family for the way our local high school helped guide his class through the later months of the COVID-19 pandemic in a safe, emotionally supportive, and college preparatory way. (See? Oddly loyal high school graduates. Very St. Louisan.)

And still... I cannot help but notice the number of families who choose private school (Jon Hamm's and others') over public. And the stark, disturbing difference in resources between St. Louis City and St. Louis County public school. Not to mention the philosophical and political variance among the 23 County school districts when it comes to things like masking, book bans, and bathrooms. Ideas about what it means to keep children safe change as you move further away from the city limits.

There's a lot of complexity and violence in St. Louis's racial, economic, and cultural history that endures and impacts the city as it exists today. I wish I could say that since arriving here I've worked hard to make a positive difference in my community, but the fact is that my contributions have been minimal: a STL (Save Trans Lives) yard sign, donations to local organizations that help immigrant families transition or help women upskill and find employment, and several strongly worded emails to Jay Ashcroft and Josh Hawley in defense of public libraries, LGBTQ+ healthcare, and women's bodily autonomy.

Unfortunately, since arriving here in August 2020, I've mostly found myself succumbing to the law of inertia.

If I can get my body into motion, it tends to stay in motion. Last fall, I celebrated a somewhat significant birthday by traveling all over the country with / to see friends and family. I was away from St. Louis for 11 out of 14 weekends between mid-August and Thanksgiving, and the 3 weekends I spent in town were taken up by a local music festival, hosting out-of-town friends, and suffering through my first Covid diagnosis. When I'm not in St. Louis, I find myself energized, engaged, and fully enjoying life's busy-ness.

When I'm home, I often find myself exhausted, enervated, and uninterested in much beyond work, family, dog, and Netflix. There are days when I wake up in St. Louis and find it hard to get out of bed. 

This happened today. After weeks of continuous travel to move both kids onto their respective out-of-state college campuses and then grab some beach time over Labor Day, I slept in my bed in St. Louis for the first time in nearly a month. And when my alarm went off at 6am, as it always does, I made the decision (and I do recognize that it was a decision, albeit a passive one) to stay in bed. I forwent any chance of a morning walk, a shower, starting my suitcase laundry, or reviewing work emails to help set the day's priorities. Instead, I chose multiple snooze buttons and scrolling Instagram for longer than I care to admit.

It's hard to say whether my location is giving causation or correlation.

#thebestpartofwakingup

Maybe it's not St. Louis per se. It could just as easily be part of my post-Covid reality, perimenopause, or the culmination of two decades of really intense parenting. It could be that I, as a body, am so desperate for rest that I tend to remain at rest until acted on by an outside force... like the dog needing breakfast, being 5 minutes out from my first Zoom of the day, or my saintly husband making coffee and delivering a mugful into my hands. I will go vertical for coffee.

My dream is to be compelled to change my state by the action of an internal force, to be motivated by what I want for me and who I want to be in my community.

I just need to stop / start moving enough to figure out what (and where) that is.