Month: August 2015

Summer Stories 2

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Click to read Summer Stories 1 here. I am great at packing as long as I can bring everything with me. If that means checking two bags instead of one, or jamming an extra pair of shoes and another sweater into my personal item so my carry on isn’t too heavy, I will be fine. In the case of my summer story, I did all of that, plus sent a heavy box via media mail days before lift off. Though I had a couple of days to prepare before heading away for the summer,  I didn’t pack my suitcases until the final few hours before leaving.  A girl can learn a lot about herself when she is prepping to be away from her day to day life. In my mind, I needed very little.  All I cared about were the essentials. Absolute essentials. When faced with having to decide on what things are most important to us, we hear things like “photographs, my mother’s this, my father’s that.” Since I wasn’t just going on a trip, but taking an indefinite amount of time …

Summer Stories  1

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At the end of last year I felt a pebble in my shoe, but thought nothing of it. The new year started off like any other, welcoming 2015 with little fan fare. No big trips planned, no milestones up the road, and nothing of immediate note in the horizon that might add strain or stress. That being said, I rolled through the first month just fine, but starting in February, I felt an emotional sensation similar to being repeatedly poked. I’d oddly twitch while standing still and feel digs in my side while in motion. That tiny pebble was still in my shoe, annoying me with each step, so to speak. Not at all physical, they were those nagging gut feelings you have, those whispers in the back of your mind that become very loud the moment you try to get very quiet. “Go away!”  I’d say to these irritants, “It’s all in my head,” I told myself point blank, “This is nothing.”  There is something I call the negative side of optimism, when a normally positive person like me shakes things off …