on being two (or more?) people

I've come to the conclusion recently that I'm generally destined to live at least two lives simultaneously. It's not just that the things and people that feed my brain and my feelings of vocation are completely different than those that feed my soul. They also tend to be in totally different geographical locations.

Examples, there are many:

- Every significant romantic relationship I've had in my life has included an extended periods of living at long distances from the other person. I'm not kidding; many of those distances can be counted in thousand-mile increments. Not to mention that... OK, I'm officially saying this to the internet... and I don't know why that makes me slightly nervous... I just met Someone who I'm hoping to get to know quite a bit better, who lives, of course, several hours away.

- While living in New York City for a job I loved, I spent over a year driving one or two weekends a month up to western New England to contra dance and fall in love with a community in which I instantly felt more at home than I ever did in the city. Perhaps not so coincidentally, I began in earnest to divide my life between NYC and New England almost immediately after the end of one of those 1,000-miles-apart relationships.

- I have a whole community of friends and familiarity in and around Asheville, North Carolina. I pretty much know my way around, know my favorite restaurants and hangouts, and would most likely run into people I know walking down the street. I was there five times in 2008 alone. I have never lived in Asheville, and don't plan to live there in the forseeable future. Except I live there for a few days every couple of months, apparently.

- I madly love living in a small town in southern Vermont. So I'm planning to leave. And scheming ways to live in Boston during the grad-school-week and in Brattleboro on the weekends. Interesting side note: I say this to non-dance-community friends and they tell me I'm nuts (side side note: I'm not denying that). I say it to dance community folks and they say "oh yeah, lots of people do that, you can totally do that." (Side note II: you might be wondering whether Someone lives in Boston; the answer is: of course not. He lives several hours in the exact opposite direction. But I know you are not thinking of the implications of all this put together, no no, because that would be thinking WAY too far ahead. And you would not be that ridiculous.)

- 2 years and 2 months is the longest I've lived in one place doing one thing since my freshman year of high school. High school. 1996. I was in Minneapolis-St. Paul for closer to 2.5 years, but it doesn't count because it involved senior year of college and then the first year and a half of being graduated and employed (i.e. having free time and money), which is a whole other life than being in school. And those 2+ years were when I was "living in" New York City - see above. And it's not like I was a military brat. My parents still live in the town I was born in. I just felt the need to leave the country for long stretches every few years in high school and college.

And just for added fun, sometimes I wonder if I'm living multiple simultaneous lives not just in location but in personality. I recently discovered the blog of my friend, um, Stephen (his blogging, but not actual, name), who mentions this fabulous article to help explain being an introvert. That's me.

Except it's not. I am a total introvert in many ways. Needs hours alone? Check. Good social skills, not necessarily shy but also often uncomfortable in social situations and big groups? Check.

But wait, extroverts are those energized by others? They tend to be enthusiastic and talkative? Um, check. So what the heck am I? I talk this over from time to time with Froggoddess... are we introverts or extroverts? Introspective extroverts? Overly caffeinated hermits? All of those things at the same time?

I think it's just time to stop fighting it. I have never been happier than during the year and a half or so that I have fully lived here, that I managed to find really good work and a really good life all in one place, with enough time and opportunities to be very social sometimes and to stay at home alone sometimes. But then the landscape changed, and in order to deal with that, I'm resigning myself to the idea that I'm just not supposed to have all those things in one place. My sights either need to be much lower, or much broader. I don't know how to choose anything but the latter.

Conclusion: by the time I'm out of grad school, there had better be a lot more options for telecommuting.