Showing posts with label Home. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Home. Show all posts

01 July 2016

Five Years and a Full Heart

The close of one season and the beginning of the next. It's a certain cycle of life. Most of the time there is stability on one area while we fade out and back into something new in another. Sometimes all the major pieces reshuffle all at once, causing a cyclone of thoughts and emotions, unable to be fully experienced because of the sheer number of to-dos on the list.

Today I am in the eye of this storm; it is hectic, it is scary, and it is beautiful.

Today was my last day at work, almost exactly on my five-year anniversary. This place, these people, it was just what I needed, when I needed it. When I needed them. By divine orchestration, and to my great surprise and delight, I think *I* was just what *they* needed, too. 
Editing a report at Hart Crowser's Edmonds office
At first, I did not see myself someplace like this. But then again, I didn't know what "like this" even was. Yes, it's an engineering firm. They do some environmental stuff. But I have come to know and love a team of people with passion, life, intelligence, a strong work ethic, great senses of humor, people who are sometimes aggravating but always likeable. They have shaped the person I am continuing to become, and know I have impacted them as well. I am overwhelmed with gratitude for the relationships built here. I'm thankful for people who helped me see myself through THEIR eyes, and though that, have built me up. I hope I have done the same for them.

Today is just the beginning of a series of transitions and changes. It is the end of a season but not the end of the friendships I have made. They were carefully formed and will always be a permanent part of who I am. This version of "me" is better than who I might have been without them.

The END of something is often the time we can most truly appreciate it, so for that reason, I treasure this ending. I hope to carry the seeds of this chapter into the next, where every now and then I will remember what I had here, and I will smile.

12 March 2011

11 January 2011

Epic Road Trip with my Brother, October 2010

Back in October my brother Cason drove with me from Cincinnati to Seattle. A big thank you to my sister-in-law Danielle and the 3 kids for sparing him for 6 days! It was a very special time.

Mt. Rushmore, SD
 

The Badlands, SD
 

Devil's Tower, WY
 

At Yellowstone, Cason tried to catch a photo of this up-close bison, but we had the camera set on video!



Yellowstone, WY
 

For those who want to see more, here's the entire album.

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14 August 2008

Home

I though I had one more trip on the horizon -- a sort of internship in Media -- but not anymore. After 2 1/2 years of calling Chiang Mai "home," I'm headed back to my birthplace of Cincinnati, USA.

It's very strange, because I like and want to live overseas, and think I may again in the future. But for now, I'm quite excited to go back to my roots.

Several single friends who share my kind of lifestyle have also recently been given opportunities put down a few roots and connect with family. I think it's good.

I recently read a book about being older and single*, and how this makes "community" harder for us in some ways... so many options of where to live, what job to go for, the WORLD is available to us! And yet, that causes our friends (and us) to come and go like the wind, and "Saturday nights continue to roll around with daunting frequency." If we don't really plan ahead, and work hard to develop new local friendships, we can often end up spending a quiet evening alone, when we would prefer to be making a meaningful human connection.

One of this writer's friends says it's like "attempting to slake one’s relational thirst by sipping from a thousand little waxy Dixie cups. You don’t die of dehydration, but in your core, you increasingly long for a few deep wells."

I could relate to that. I've been quite thirsty for some time. I'm excited to be returning to the deep, familiar well that is my flesh and blood.


*Revelations of a Single Woman by Connally Gilliam