Ticking

I'm back where I was less than 36 hrs ago - a seat (with a plug!) near gate B3 in BWI airport on a layover between flights.  Friday night it was the outbound flight that arrived into Rochester at 11pm.  This morning it's the flight "home" that left at 7:15.  It was was a wonderful wedding whirlwind, and the main reason I'm as perky as I am right now is some combination of coffee and a much-needed nap between the ceremony and the reception yesterday afternoon.

As I've mentioned in recent posts, that concept of "home" is a complicated thing in my world to the point that I feel compelled to use quotation marks around it.  Raleigh is becoming "home" in the sense that's where I'm going to be living and working.  But honestly, although the area generally feels comfortable I have no clue what's what and where's where there.  The only foothold I've got there at the moment is the clothes and toiletries that I could fit into my truck - I'll need those for work.  Other than that, "home" is a hotel room for at least the next week.  

Now that all the craziness of actually getting here in the first place is past, there are two main priorities right now.  New job.  I've got what feels like a great job, with a great group of people, who are all very excited about an established company on the launchpad to wonderful things.  Of course, all of that is "potential".  But after 2 hrs of phone interviews and 8 hrs of face-to-face interviews with nearly a dozen people over two days I've got better sense of what I'm getting into than typically happens.

Home.  These past few days have been interesting regard.  I left Charleston on Thursday.  That's still the place that feels most like home to me at the moment.  I'm going through withdrawals in that regard because I want to maintain that connection.  And Rochester is probably the place that I'm most comfortable in the world.  We lived there for 15+ years, our son was born and grew up there, and the wedding was a sobering reminder about the passage of time.

I remember when my niece was born.  They featured a photo that I took of my dad holding her - sitting in our family room - at the wedding to include my dad in the celebration.  My son is just a year and a half younger than Rachel so the two of them had some of the same friends, and I typically see them when I get back to Rochester for what I'll call "milestone events".  Prom.  High School Graduation.  And now...a wedding.

I can still find my way around Rochester with my eyes closed.  Thankfully, it hasn't grown over to the years where the charms that made it a good place to live and raise a family have gotten lost.  The fact that so many of the people there that I've known since the early '90s or before are still there is testament to its charms.  It'd be easy to find a reason to go back there, but somehow I sense that's not where I'm supposed to be.  It's great to visit although this particular trip was rediculously short.  I suspect my next trip there will be in the fall sometime.  Perhaps Thanksgiving depending on whatever else is happening...Anyway, I'm far too focused on the short-term right now to make plans with any sense of confidence beyond the end of next week.

The wedding itself was wonderful.  I've got an admittedly dulled perspective on love and commitment but things like this keep the spark of hope alive.  Rachel and her husband, Andrew, are amazing together.  They've been together for a number of years, they bought a house last year, and I suppose at this point the wedding is merely the exclamation point to two souls who were meant to find each other who actually did.

When I ask, "Why ruin a perfectly good relationship with a marriage?" I recognize the voice of the cynic in me rearing her ugly head.  But I'd be lying if I said I didn't wish for a similar connection with someone in this world.  I remain hopeful, and given everything else going on I'll acknowledge that this other person is going to need to find me because I'm way too crazed with other things right now to make searching too hard a priority, or even work it into the schedule.  I've gotten comfortable with managing by myself and will continue into the foreseeable future.  It all seems to work and that's the important thing.

Anyway, I've uploaded a few photos from the event to my Snaplog.  

My niece describes herself as "untraditional" and I think the general theme of the wedding demonstrated that both she and Andrew are made from that same mold.  She didn't wear white...Andy's mom made her dress (she looks beautiful in blue).  Andy is Scottish so he (and all the groomsmen, his father and grandfather, and my brother!) wore kilts.  They cut the wedding cake with the little sword/dagger that's part of the outfit.  From the vows, to the general flow of things, everything had an imprint of their personality, their originality, their uniqueness.  It was wonderfully renewing to be part of it.

Anyway - that's that.  

The events of the last few weeks have been frenetic, to say the least.  That's probably true of my summer in general - with the two-week cross-country drive, the week of hiking in the Canadian Rockies, and then the process of finding "what's next" it's been a crazy, wonderful, sometimes nerve-wracking couple of months.  I can truly say that I enjoy it, but I've always known that it would end.  Summer eventually fades  Everything ends.  The point is to enjoy it while you can and I like to think I made the most of the time I had.  But now it's time to shift gears and focus on the task at hand.  Get  foothold in Raleigh.  Get up and running on the job.  Make other life-direction decisions that need to be made as the tide-shift of people in my world carries some away, and brings others closer.

I've said it before but it doesn't hurt to reiterate from time to time.  This blog has become very much like my own private journal.  The fact that I share it with people who may or may not know me is always in the back of my mind while I'm typing so I'm cautious about specifics.  For example, I'd love to share where I'm going to work but I choose not to as it's really not pertinent.  Certain other aspects of my life are similarly off-limits because they involve others who may not want "stuff" about them here.  

Still - what I do share I share simply because I find it therapeutic to express things in words.  Times like now, with lots of change and lots of uncertainty, involve lots of thinking and lots of emotion.  I'm a thinking and emotional person, and I don't have anyone to share most of this with.  Not that I want or need feedback - it'd be easy to judge based on the limited amount of information I share or other agendas.  It's the outlet that I need.  That helps to keep me ticking.  And I plan to be ticking for quite a while to come....

Onwards.