Finally There

Here I am, just one week from today I will be back home, in my own bed, in my own apartment, with my love, in my city. Just one week, which seems like it took so long coming, like this month was five, and the days seemed endless. I can't wait until this week is done, until I can be home in my bed next week, smiling because I know that I'm there for good this time, no flight back at the end of vacation, no goodbyes for a month, and from now on, life is changing, and so many new things are starting, so many new things are making my life different, moving forward, and looking ahead.

I can't wait till next week, when I can just sit back and smile, knowing that I am finally home.

Apprehension

I'm feeling so restless, so ready to go home, so ready to move on with my life and I've been doing a lot of thinking lately. I've been realizing ever so much lately, that I really do want to get married, that I really do want that moment when I promise my life, that I do want to wear that white dress. I think what makes me so apprehensive is that I don't want how I live my life to have to change. I don't want us to change, I don't want marriage to pull us apart, I don't want it to be a traditional marriage or a traditional life that comes next, I want it to be just us, to make it up as we go along. I want to be able to make up my own rules, to make it how we want it to be.

I've been feeling very alone and I just miss home, I miss the comfort of my own apartment, the city I love, the friends, the family that I miss. My time here has run its course and it's a new era in my life, yet again. It's another change, but this time, going back home instead of away from it. I need the Saturday afternoon naps on the couch, watching movies at night, walks in the Pearl, gelato, oh how I miss gelato. I need the rain, the fall, the bare trees in the winter. I just can't wait for that day when I board that plane, knowing I'm done, knowing I'm home.

Ready

Sometimes I feel so alone, despite being constantly surrounded here, I'm not living my life, I'm living there's. I find myself fighting for air or for something familiar, something that I need all my own. I need to fight for what I want again and to be around people that know who I have truly become, know what my life consists of and why. I find myself being dragged down, being pushed into things that I don't want, or having things that I really wanted taken away from me for their own agendas.

I just need to get home, I just need to breathe on my own again, take a break from family and just focus on me again. I think that sometimes family just wears you down, sometimes you need to just go off on your own, find your own way away from them and their ideas. I just need some breathing room, some space. I feel so alone lately, despite the fact that I am constantly surrounded. I'm so ready to get home, so so ready.

Chasing the Path

I have felt so many emotions in the last few months, some good, some bad, some I shouldn't have felt, but did, some that I felt regardless of the consequences. Some led me to peace, some led me no where at all, but I guess that's the point of life isn't it? The journey, finding out where we are headed, and making mistakes along the way. My journey has been complicated and my feelings and emotions have been intricate and complicated and I always will be that way I think, I'm just a complicated girl, someone that is always going to need something more, someone that's always going to be pushing the bar, someone that's always going to push myself, that's always going to feel complicated emotions, some easy to understand, others a little bit more complicated.

I think that sometimes what we feel in those times that we never expected to feel them, can teach us the most important lessons, and if we had felt at some other time, we might have made a different decision, we might have crossed another path, started another journey. I find that so intriguing, that there are so many paths we can choose and so many journeys to take, so many paths to walk that at any point in our lives, we can switch, we can make new decisions, we can follow a new path, we can feel something new. That's what I want my life to be about, feeling something new, chasing the impossible, chasing the paths that I've always dreamed of.

Forgiveness

Forgiveness... we're taught growing up to forgive those who hurt us, and to move on and let it go. We're taught that's the right thing to do, no matter how hard it is. But is that really the right way to treat those that are closest to us, should we just forgive anything, no matter how many times we get hurt? What about when we're hurt over and over again, with the same thing, do we just forgive that? Over and over? How does that help anyone, how does that make people change? Shouldn't we expect more from those around us, especially those closest to us, shouldn't the bar be higher for them?

I think that we get stuck with people that are just part of our world and we forgive their transgressions just because it's easier than stepping back and saying no, that's not okay. Aren't there some things in this world, that just frankly are not ok? And are we not allowed to hold people to that, especially those that should be the best to us that they can if they really love us like they say?

I'm finding more and more that the ones closest to us just expect us to forgive and forget and move on, but what if we're holding ourselves back by doing that, what if I'm holding myself back from being loved how I should, from getting what I need and what I deserve? What if forgiveness is not helping any of us, maybe we shouldn't forgive and forget. Maybe when we get hurt by those that closest in our lives, forgiving is only letting them make the same mistake again.

Home, For Good

I need the rain, I'm craving it. I need the peace and comfort of home, I need an embrace from the one I love. I need the moments at peace, and the sound of the rain falling outside. I need the views of the city and the smell of the fall, the colors of the leaves and the change of the seasons. I need the days curled up at home with a blanket and cup of tea, I need the afternoons of doing nothing.

I need the PF Changs takeout and the evenings out to dinner. I need the conversations with friends and those beautiful early fall evenings that it's still just barely warm enough to eat outside. I need to feel whole and back in place. I need to feel the inspiration as I sit at the riverfront in the middle of the winter, I need to feel the embrace of those I love. And above all, I need to be home.

Stretch

I think that my life has turned the corners that it has in order to make me stronger, smarter and more aware. And as I look around, I really enjoy the career I have chosen, and I really enjoy my close family, however crazy we might be, however many dramas we encounter, however many stories can be told about us, I love every minute of it because I love them. I really enjoy where I am in my life right now, and I enjoy my daily life, even though I feel stretched thin most of the time. I enjoy sitting at my desk and being able to really work, to get things done and know that as I accomplish something, a project is moving forward in a good direction. I enjoy knowing that my decisions really are taken in to account, and that I am entrusted with huge projects, that I am given the responsibilities that I have been given.

Though on the other hand, I really can't wait to be home in my apartment full time, to be able to walk the streets of my city, to see the seasons change, to have lunches with friends and dinners out. I can't wait to feel settled, to feel home, to feel good again. It's going to be yet another transition in my life, another goodbye to the life I've built here, to my parents, to my colleagues, to my acquaintances. This has been a year of experiences for me that I wouldn't have gotten anywhere else and when I look back, I wouldn't take anything back or trade any moment of it. There have been extreme highs and lows, and I have found out a lot about myself, about who I am and who I'm not. I have stood up to controversy and I have stood up for myself. I have fought for what I think is right and will only continue to do so in the future. I have given myself a name and I have placed myself in a footing with men that are twice my age, sitting at the same conference table as them, giving them my advice. This change on one hand will be what I've always hoped would happen eventually, but it's also going to be giving up a lot of what I love about my job. It's going to be a lot of learning again, learning how to transition to this new life.

I feel so stretched thin as it is right now, here's hoping that this won't stretch me any thinner.

Calling

In an instant, the healing can begin. A moment as it rains outside, or an afternoon of sleeping and watching favorite shows in my apartment can turn it around, it can all begin to begin again. I feel the best I've felt today, I feel more like myself, more like my city is finally starting to pull me back. And with only a month left until I'm home for good, I can't wait for the fall, for the changes in the colored trees outside my window, for the rain to start pouring down outside, for the coats to come out and to bundle up with blankets while I sit here writing, sipping a cup of tea in the evenings.

There is so much that I feel like I've missed by not being here for the last year, so much that I never got to experience last year, so much that I miss about Oregon, about Portland especially. I have my own life here, my own space, my own heart here. And finally, it's beginning to come back, it's beginning to heal, to start anew. Finally my city is calling my name again.

Break

I think that sometimes we have to fully break to be able to start to put ourselves back together again. Maybe that's just how the circle of life works, after all you have to die to be fully reborn, and you have to stop, before you can start again. I think I hit that point yesterday, that point where everything that's tearing me apart inside, everything that's scaring me, everything that's eating at me every single day, finally had to break me, finally had to tear me fully apart inside in order for me to rebuild, in order for me to start over and take that first breath again. I am still scared, and I am still torn, but at least I can take the first steps to move on and to rebuild, to accept what is about to come and to embrace it, to learn to live with it and to learn to love again.

I need help though, I can't do it fully on my own. I need to know that the step I'm taking is real and right, and that this path is the right path for us. I need to know every single day that the little things still do matter, that love can be fragile but brilliant, that home can really be wherever you are and that life is too important to let the smallest moments slip away from us.

I need to know that no matter how far or deep I break, I will have someone to catch me, someone to hold me in the dark and help me put myself back together again.