On the next transition.

I wanted this to feel like Colorado. I sat down in front of the computer screen, put on my favorite Pandora station, opened up my blogger window, and took one last look out the window to remind me of the beautiful day outside. I wanted to feel as driven and excited by the written word as I did so many months ago, the days I would wake up hours early in order to shake the words out of my head before driving the mile or so to work through the thin, crisp air, the Flatirons looming so majestically above me and the sky cloudless and blue.

But it hasn't worked. Every effort I've made in the past few months to reclaim that peace of mind, that feeling of boundless freedom I lost when I crossed the Mississippi, has ended the same way. I've only recently put my finger on the feeling - like my shoes are too tight. The big sky and mountain breeze helped of course, but the real thing I'm lacking right now has nothing to do with geographical location. Colorado was potent because it was mine. My first half marathon, my move to Bonnet, the relationships I cultivated and strengthened and lost and gained over the nine months I spent there, all the running and the learning and the opening - all of that was mine too. But now it's like I'm living on borrowed time, within the confines of other peoples' homes and in snippets of everyone else's lives. Don't get me wrong, I've had an absolutely amazing summer. I'm so incredibly grateful for the love I've felt and the people I've met and the places I've seen. But it has also felt like one absurdly long vacation, and I think I'm ready for a little solid ground. A place I can really call home.

In two weeks, I will begin yet another experience of my very own. I'm scared. I'm thrilled and anxious and ecstatic and frightened and feeling utterly bewildered and bittersweet. In some ways, the last thing I want to do is leave (ok, one very particular way), but in others I realize it's more necessary than I probably know. I worry about balance and about failure and about the past repeating itself, all the while looking forward to the adventure and the challenge and the opportunity to prove myself once again. I've been having a lot of feelings and doing a lot of soul-searching in preparation for the long road ahead. And here's what I've come up with:

1. Stop being so scared of not having enough time. Whatever that means. John Steinbeck once said in a letter to his son, "Don't worry about losing. If it is right, it happens - The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away." So have a little faith. That goes for so much more than love.

2. Don't forget to breathe. Be careful not to get so lost in your head at the expense of the rest of you and the big world around you that's so ripe for the noticing. Because - I wrote it in a previous post, and I've never forgotten it - the truth of the matter is that we'll never be younger than we are today.

3. See everyone you meet with fresh eyes and a beginner's mind. Plato had it right: "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle," and all that.

4. For god's sake, love yourself. You're pretty awesome and, more than that, you're pretty damn lucky. Take care to see that you never become depleted or overwhelmed enough to forget that.

Yes, I miss the mountains. I miss the big sky. But I love my life today. And as it turns out, the freedom I once thought was exclusive to altitude is tantamount to the ease that arises when I hold myself accountable for my own peace of mind. From loving and letting go and trusting... something. And I've realized all of this before, but maybe that's what life is. Once, during one of our then-customary late night chats in the hot tub, my good friend Liz likened growing up to a spiral staircase rather than a ladder. It's not linear (much to the chagrin of those of us who enjoy control and single-variable equations with rational solutions). We may come back to the same point again and again, but we rise a little each time we do it. So I'm learning the same lessons over and over, which is incredibly frustrating. But at least I'm growing while I'm doing it. And at least I'm learning. Borrowed space and time might be infuriating, but when the time is mine again, I think I'll be plenty ready to jump right in... and hopefully to rise a little more.