Ticks Dig Me

Chicks don't dig me (as they shouldn't) but TICKS do! I lost count on the first morning of our trip on how many ticks wanted to feast on my lily white body. Lesson learned, buy the zip off pant legs - gosh! What a great time to get away and relax. Yes, it was the hottest weekend of the year so far. Yes, it was warmish. No, I didn't care.

First backpacking adventure. I wasn't sure if I was going to make it. When asked I just said I was good to go so I wouldn't hear myself say out loud that I thought I might die . . . or that I wasn't quite sure because I couldn't feel anything below my neck. Am I full of drama? Yes I am. The feeling when you take a backpack off is the best feeling in the world. I think I might have been able to run to the car and back on that feeling. OK, maybe just to the car, but the bathroom was right there and I wasn't going to see that thing again for 2 days. My tent smelled like feet, but I didn't care, I was laying down.

I won't bore you with the blow by blow of the trip, other than to say it was a good learning experience, with a good and patient teacher. It was hard to come back today, only because I felt like there were more lessons to be learned. BUT, if we hadn't come back today we wouldn't have seen the man riding his burro through Farmington. Yes, that's right.

Look Ma, No Hands!

There are really no words

Moving

I am learning a lot right now - the biggest lesson: moving is more than just about leaving. While moving in my adult life it all came at times where it was expected. When I graduated from college it was natural to leave, no one else I knew was really staying around. Before that moving happened at natural transitions in life - never like this. Never where I am here one day and the next I will be gone, leaving everyone and everything behind. Life here will go on well without me. Some won't even notice I am gone until I come back for a visit. I'm not saddened by that fact. I know it has been the case when others I know have left. Life is just a bit different without them here, but life went on just fine with them gone. I struggle more with leaving behind those that I have lived life with on such a level that it will be painful to go. I don't like to need, or cry, or be vulnerable, and I will do all of those things.

Other than the application process and the general stuff of getting ready to go to grad school, I have struggled with every process. The process of looking for a place to live, getting my money figured out, packing, saying goodbye. I don't do any of them. I just live like the beginning of August will be just that, the same as the beginning of last August. If I start to go down the path of leaving I get all hung up and quit. Maybe that is why I am running so much right now (more than just the physical).