home again, home again

So, today marked my return to good ol' NC. I cried approximately 12 times today--Hugging Jo goodbye, Hugging Bryan goodbye, getting on the Colorado Mountain Express to Denver, like 3 more times on that ride, then on both airplane rides, and then the most when I stepped out of RDU into the sweltering, muggy, miserable heat. It was a loss. Colorado is truly where my heart is, and where I feel most at home. Being back at my house in NC makes everything feel so surreal--almost like I was never there. Like it was a dream. It's such a strange feeling, even though I know that I definitely did experience the past three and a half weeks.

So, this morning when I was driving into Vail with Bryan to catch the CME, I realized that a huge reason I was having such a hard time coming home is that there's nothing home for me. My best friends aren't in Raleigh. I don't have a boy here waiting for my return. I don't have school. All I had was work and a concert. I'm going to be working 9-5 basically every day, but then I'll come home and have nothing purposeful to do. Boredom seems to make loneliness and homesickness ten times worse, because there's not much to keep one's mind off of things.

THUS, I've decided that I'm going to teach myself to run. It's going to be a struggle, it's going to be painful, and it's definitely going to be a spectacle. Nonetheless, my inability to run has been something I've hated since elementary school, and what better time than now to do something about it. I've done some research online, and I came up with a schedule with a task for each day from now until Sunday, September 7th. If all goes as planned, and assuming I can keep up with my schedule, I'll be able to run 2 miles 8 weeks from now. I'm a strong believer in the importance of exercise in maintaining sanity--at least in my own life, and I'm really going to try to implement exercise (and running...soon) into my daily routine. I am looking forward to feeling the satisfaction of having the ability to run for the first time in my life.

So, besides being home and creating this running calendar, not much else has happened. My family is going to see Tom Petty tomorrow night--oh, and we're sitting 3rd row. I guess that'll be kind of fun---or really fun. I'm pretty excited. Then I start work back up again on Monday. I'm teaching preschool at MAP. That'll be an interesting experience I think. I'm really looking forward to it though. Anyway, there will be updates - fear not! In light of the amazingness that is Tom Petty...I'll leave you on a jammin' Tom Petty note.

"Into the great wide open,
Under them skies of blue
Out in the great wide open,
A rebel without a clue"
-- Tom Petty