thirty-four days

There are evenings every now and again when I feel like it's all coming together. That I'm not on an extended reprieve from the life I'd known for so long and that a future with new plans and people is starting to coalesce. Of course there are also evenings when I feel like I need to take a hard look at the expectations I have for my new circumstances and readjust my thinking to better reflect reality.

In not so many words, things have been good. When I take the pause to count the days I've actually lived in Oregon (34 to be exact) I'm floored by the progress I've made in terms of people I've met (and remembered), social events I've attended, invitations that have been extended, and opportunities I've had to serve. Thirty-four days is a blink of the eye, so taking the time to reflect has been nothing but a good thing.

My writing might not make much sense--no surprise there, it's hard to sift through and categorize it in my mind. Explaining it becomes less important when I tell you that I'm happy, right?

In sad news, in the last 34 days I lost my dream home in a bidding war, housed a raging flu and bronchial cough that'd hurt your lungs to hear, traveled to San Francisco (yay!) while under the weather, worked some stressful weeks, said some things I shouldn't have said, didn't say some things I should have said, and have yet to exercise one time. To be coming out happy on the far side of that should prove to you that things are better than I'm letting on.

I haven't spoken/text/chat/emailed much with my Boston life. It hasn't been a conscious effort to leave it alone, simply a survival technique to focus on the effort required to move ahead. Thirty-four days doesn't accurately reflect the number of days I feel removed from the people and that place. In some regard, there's a chasm in my brain that separates my lives--but that chasm will be so easy bridged as soon as I come face-to-face with someone whom I love or I step foot into that city I adore.

I feel empowered by hope. Thirty-four days here has given me a pretty good (realistic) look at what my life will be like here in Portland. No, it's not what I imagined it would be during my planning--but I've discovered in this not so short and also very long time, that my success here depends solely on me. It's a bit daunting, and on more than one occasion has felt exhaustingly overwhelming, but if there's one person in this world I trust, it's me. Sink or swim, it's in my hands. I'm grateful that my spiritual faith is not only a catalyst for action but also a comfort in those moments when I'm paralyzed by fear. I have both a hope and faith that things will all work out in the end.

"Work out" yet to be determined, but it's going to be great.