I didn’t expect for this month to feel as drastically different as it has.
July 29th, I got the keys to my new place at the same time I got the keys to my new studio. It was exciting and scary and I couldn’t help the constant train of “how do I pay for all this? Can I handle all this?” that purveyed my brain even as it thought of all the possibilities.
The house is bigger. There’s more room and a bigger yard. The dogs are happy even if they were confused the first two nights and kept waiting by the door to go home. My front neighbors made me cookies and brought me dog treats. It’s nice.
The studio, while very loud colors at the moment, is starting to get painted and organized and set up. We didn’t have time to get it set up in time for August art trail but it’s coming along. We’re getting it figured out and have started to make it our own. It’s nice too.
There are no traces or echoes of previous me in these spaces. No hiding depression or baggage or fears. These spaces are new and fresh, inhabited only by the me I am now. But something weird that I’ve noticed is it still also feels like old me. Not the me from 5 years ago but the me from 10-15 years ago.
The Sandman on Netflix came out right as I moved in. Sandman, which is you know me or are new, was the comic that got me back into comics. It taught me that the medium wasn’t just for superheroes but could contain multitudes and cover an array of ideas and mythologies and could be dark and beautiful but tragic. I still have the copy of the first volume I had in school, torn up and scribbled on as I had stole it from the school library and tried to cover up the stamps.
It’s the only thing I really collect, that I look for first printings of and buy copies off eBay and look in different comic shops for. It inspired teenage me to write about folklore and mythology and gods and monsters and big ideas that seem small now. It’s a foundation for who I am, something that changed me and my tastes fundamentally. And there it was, in flesh and real for a whole new audience to enjoy.
I was able to get an early screener of the first episode before it came out. My new house has enough room now that I could have people over and have a watch party. I haven’t had a lot of people to really whole heartedly have discussions about the comics and series before so I’ve made it a goal to make everyone watch and read and listen to it. Teenage me has come back in a form, excited about a piece of fiction and devouring any small piece of it, crying on the couch after binging all 10 episodes of it then immediately starting a rewatch. This was the me that absorbed these ideas and made new stories out of them, playing with concepts in her head and spitting them out in her own stories.
It was beautiful. It was new but old and imperfect but perfect and I’m so glad that new fans have this new thing to be fans of but can also go back and read the wealth of comics and also over 20 hours of the incredible radio drama on Audible. There was Dream and there was Death and there was Desire and it felt like stories come to life.
I started writing again. I’m not sharing it because its new and fragile and I’m afraid it’ll shatter and I’ll stop writing. But the feeling of sitting at a desk and hammering out 2000 words is familiar. An echo of old me.
Bee and Puppycat is also coming back soon. And I’m watching old cartoons and documentaries and reading and sketching out ideas and laying on the couch less and having people over. I started having Sandman episode watch parties and now we have a book club and Ladies Night came back last weekend but it’s not Ladies Night anymore. Old me but new.
She’s in there, like a snake in reverse where I don’t shed old skin but grow new skin on top.
A place is a place but it can also be a home and it can also be a cage. My old house was both. I loved it, loved all of its poorly held together spots and the shady neighborhood and the blue of its paint. But I needed room to grow and it didn’t have any room for new skin so I had to leave.
Now the new skin is settling in and I’m finding myself more comfortable than I did even just last month. More sure. I have a ton of events planned and ideas and no time, but I’m enjoying having some things that are just fun and for myself. I’m less worried, feeling a little more sure. This new place is a house I picked myself, not out of desperation to quickly move, but purposefully. I chose this place. In all aspects of the word.
Neil Gaiman once was asked to summarize The Sandman in one sentence. He said, “The Lord of Dreams discovers that he must change or die, and makes his choice."
It’s a perfect description.
Change or die.
-Sam <3