Last Wednesday, the rain poured outside as I stood inside my closet (a feat that would have required some serious contortionist stunts back in NYC) and stared at my clothes.  I was going to lunch with The Sis and AV, a friend from high school whose car I wrecked way back when, and their kids.  My first Ladies Lunch in my new hometown.  In New York, the girls and I didn’t “lunch” so much as we rolled out of our beds and stumbled to the brunch spot on the corner to begin weekend recaps.  But now I live in the grown-up land of chicken salad and driving and, counter-intuitively, highchairs.  And my Manhattan uniform of torn jeans and sole-ripped flat boots didn’t seem fancy enough for a midday outing in downtown Roswell.  So I picked out some leggings and a new shirt while, a few miles away, The Niece threw on her dressiest onesie–the white one with the Peter Pan collar–and I pulled out into the gray wet day.

Instead of a table littered with hangovers and mimosas and french fries, we talked over squealing babies and scattered goldfish and Dora the Explorer playing on an iPhone.  This is where and who I am now, and I love it–but it does take some getting used to.  Like the windshield wipers on my car whose controls confound me, I am working on finding my rhythm as it transitions from feet-pounding-Manhattan-pavement staccato to the slower but steadier pace of suburbia: strollers on sidewalks and feet against brakes.

And in an attempt to find that rhythm in places other than couch cushions, I’m reconnecting with friends from my Pre-New York days (thank God Facebook came around in that interim and saved me from having to put forth real effort). Messages have been exchanged and plans made with friends from all stages and locations of my life.  My friends in New York had to be searched out among the masses and uncovered; now I’m working on friends who will be rediscovered. Less getting-to-know-you and more what-have-you-been-up-to.  Along with the surprise of rediscovered friendships is the remaking and deepening of expected roles: my Writing (and Rejection and Cancer and Life) Support Group includes my best friend from tenth grade, my California Pizza Kitchen and Tim Keller Fan Club Life Partner from NYC, and a family member who was first a friend, then a sister-in-law.

And it’s all made me realize that life is so much more about the uncovering and discovering than any creating on my part.  In my old life, I spent so much time and effort building the identity I thought I should have that in my two years prior to New York, I realized that I had no idea who I was.  Cue the wrecking ball. The cracks came to light in Birmingham, the demolition happened soon after, and the real stuff came through during my five years’ exile on the Island.  The unmaking of what I had made was painful…until the arrival of the recovery process.  And that involved more digging than building, more waiting than forcing.

On Saturday The Husband and I tried out the wine bar we recently discovered in our new neighborhood.  We had to drive there instead of walk, and they didn’t have the prosciutto and pineapple pizza that we loved back at Cavatappo on 3rd Avenue and 26th Street.  But they had a spot for us, and it was a great place to sit and relax and envision our completed house and hope for more like-minded couple friends with whom we can frequent wine bars.  And just like the ideas for the blog entries I labor upon twice a week, the elements of this life of ours are reliably materializing before our eyes: already there, and waiting for us to open our eyes and see our place among them.