What we were doing...
We were best friends living that post-college life. Italian restaurants on payday, oatmeal towards the end of the month; we had a cute little apartment we adored, and friends that filled it with life. A lot of my favorite memories come from the year we lived in that place. Stories swapped over our pub-style kitchen table, girl’s nights on our comfy red couches, heart-to-heart conversations on the balcony underneath the summer sky. We didn’t have a TV or WiFi, but we had a Christmas tree made out of books, three coffee makers, two guitars, and a door that was always open to anyone.
We had a good life.
We lived there for one year, and I look back and think it was more like a lifetime. New relationships and painful breakups happened in that apartment; heartbreaking losses; job changes, car accidents, a tornado. We read the Bible together with our friends over that table, and we shared meals. We were also sitting at that table when we decided to give up everything we knew, everything we had, and move to Prague.
We were two 20 year-old girls who wanted an adventure outside of the office lives we were finding ourselves stuck inside.
...and what people said...
I remember when we first started telling people about it... “Like… actually moving? Permanently?” “What do you mean you don’t know anyone there?” “Is Prague in Czechoslovakia?” We mastered the historical explanation of why it’s not actually Czechoslovakia anymore, but in fact the Czech Republic and Slovakia, two separate countries. We mastered the geography after being asked one too many times if Prague was near Russia, or near France, or near Norway… we were slightly appalled but mostly amused and started keeping a humor list of the worst guesses people made about the location of Prague.
Item by item, we emptied our apartment of whatever we could. We posted pieces on Craigslist, we gave beds and chairs and towels to friends. One guy came to look at a coffee maker and somehow walked away with pretty much our entire kitchen… and then he came back 5 minutes later to ask for the broom. We met a lot of cool people during this process - the snazzy guitar player who bought Alex’s acoustic and the guy who came to buy our table and ended up hanging out over a beer with us while we talked about the move.
...and what we learned...
We learned a lot about people. We learned a lot about friendship, and support, and what it feels like to defend your choices to people who just don’t understand.
We also learned to rely on each other, because sometimes, there was no one else. We learned to give. We learned to throw things away. You learn a lot about yourself when you have to shrink your life into a suitcase and a backpack.
When we left the apartment for the final time, we left a pile of things at the top of the stairs, things we’d built our lives with, and we climbed in our packed car, and headed east.
And I’m so proud of us for doing that. I love that my partner in crime/best friend/the Meredith to my Christina took the adventure with me. I love that we learned those lessons and took those risks. I love that we’re better humans for the experience.
...and what I miss...
But sometimes I drive past that apartment on the corner of 91st and Sheridan, and I miss the life I had there. I miss that giant chair in the living room and the overflowing bookshelves and the fireplace. I miss those millions of moments that I let slip by unnoticed.
The memories remind me to be intentional with the place I’m in now. I remember living in that apartment and being caught up in somewhere else… in Prague, in North Carolina, in the potential of moving to Oregon maybe. We lived there in body, but not in mind, and I wish I had recognized that.
Both Alex and I have lived all around the world now, and both of us have returned to Oklahoma. Both of us have an entirely different life, and different jobs, and new relationships and new goals. We have different responsibilities. We still sometimes have to eat oatmeal towards the end of the month ;) But we remind each other to live in the moment. To be here, now. To be present. And that’s powerful.
...and how I remember.
We got matching tattoos a couple months ago. The numbers 918, spelled out in Czech. 918 is the area code for Tulsa, and if you hang out with us enough, you’ll hear us telling each other to “Be in the 918.” It’s our reminder that no matter where we’re at, to always be there. To be as intentional as possible with the people we’re around, the jobs we’re in, the habits we create.
It’s not always easy, and I find myself caught up in dreams of other lives I want to live. But that’s why we have best friends, that’s why we have life lessons, and adventures… to remind us to “Be in the 918”.
