If fate conspires to move you away from someplace you like, it can be therapeutic to identify the peculiarities of the place that are less than ideal. Today gave me a hand in that department. Today I broke up with Vermont drivers.

Not that things were all roses and sunshine before. We hadn’t lived here more than six months before I invented the 40/30/30 rule of Vermont drivers. It went like this: 40% of Vermonters are perfectly fine, give-me-no-reason-to-notice-them types. 30% do bone headed things because they don’t PAY.THE.F.ATTENTION to what’s going on around them. the remaining 30% think the highways and byways are the places where they should demonstrate their own special brand of random acts of kindness. Behavior that should be encouraged in a kindergarten classroom but in the 50mph of the real world does a real good job at disrupting traffic flow at best and at worst causing accidents. Sorry Vermonters, it’s true. Most of you (not by much, but still most) are terrible drivers.

So I already had a less than charitable opinion of my fellow drivers today as I was driving up Shelburne Road. The stretch I was on had two lanes in each direction with a 5th middle lane for cars wanting to turn left or for cars to turn left onto the road in heavy traffic. (A good example can be found here.) I was more or less alone as I headed up the road in the left hand lane. On my left, I noticed a delivery van making a wide left turn out of a parking lot with teh intention of getting into my lane. He noticed me, sharpened his turn so he would enter the middle turn lane and blared his horn at me. Now I suppose I could have done a rapid lane change so that he could have exited his parking lot in peace, but there was literally no other traffic on the road, so at the time, I assumed he was aiming for the middle lane anyway. No reason he couldn’t have let me pass and then exit his parking lot. So, naturally, we happen to pull up next to each other at the next light, both with our windows down.

HIM (real sarcastic): Thanks.

ME: It wasn’t on me to get out of your way, you could have waited for me to pass and then turned onto the road.

HIM (extremely red in the face by now): I was just looking for a little courtesy……..  Asshole!

So thank you, random VT dickhead driver. Thank you for making it just a little easier to leave this beautiful state. Your scenery, your fresh air, your food, your sense of place will be missed.

But not your drivers.

Two years ago today, I started grad school. I must have known on some conceptual level that my life had changed rather dramatically, changed forever, but the full understanding of what that meant had yet to set in.

Grad school changed the course of my professional life, gave my personal life a more solid foundation, and taught me that it’s never too late to go after what you want. At times it was stressful and scary. The student loan bills are a reminder that it was wildly expensive. But I don’t regret it for a minute.

I’m standing on the precipice of another great change. This time, I have a better understanding of how different my life will be. I don’t know the specifics, but the Me of now and the Me of later will be living in very different situations. The new job will be a great opportunity for us and Chicago, well, lets just say I don’t think we’ll get bored there.

I do have apprehensions. The Grand Plan of a self-owned home not connected to another dwelling (as well as – the dream of dreams – outbuildings and a little bit of land to stretch out on) seems further away than ever. I also feel self-doubt, born of my own delightful insecurities, that my new employers will be disappointed in my education and skills.

But still.

I have faith. I have faith that this move. this new beginning, is the lever on which the rest of my life will pivot. Not grad school. I don’t know why, but I feel like grad school got me here, but this is the moment from which everything else will progress. I have visions/daydreams/fantasies of telling my grandkids about my life and together drawing the conclusion that the move to Chicago is really where my story gets good.

Change is here. Nothing left to do but toss off a prayer to whatever higher power is listening, and leap.

Feet first.

A new day is dawning, new beginnings all around.

A new city, new focus, new life. Lots will change, but the important stuff will remain the same.

I intend to use this place, again, as i should have been using it all along. A venue for venting, for reflection, for goofing off.

It’s morning in the nerd hut. Time to get moving.