Halloween

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Baby, it's Halloween
And we can be anything

- "Halloween" by Phoebe Bridgers

I've been furiously working on job applications. Pitching my research in all the myriad ways it can be situated within the field(s). Shoehorning my work into each possible Venn diagram niche. Imagining all the places I might live next. Projecting my life into a dozen cities I've never visited before. Picturing autumn, in the most North American sense of the word, on as many college campuses as I've ever visited.

I hate this part. There are too many possibilities to grow attached to. A lot of futures that will never happen. A lot of uncertainty. Just mostly vulnerability and waiting.

And also I miss home. I never really appreciated the fact that my three favorite holidays are the 4th of July, Halloween, and Thanksgiving, and that leaving the US means missing all of the above. Living through the US's total failure to manage covid means no visits to or from home for the duration of my contract in Australia. 

So Jacob and I spent the weekend watching horror movies and eating candy. And I stewed about the future and anxiously checked and rechecked the election forecast.

Maybe next week, moving home will look like a terrible idea. Or maybe not. For now, it feels like we might be anything.

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