A mistake

I'm tired.  Work was great.  I'm the only woman in a pool of men.  It's nice, but I can't figure out why.  We played frisbee for a bit in the park before we began, and frisbee is not my strength.  I was nervous and caught, but mostly dropped, the frisbee like a prissy 8th grade girl.  Finally, when we sat down and began a dialogue, my intelligence kicked in, and I was at home.   I was given room to speak from the heart and I'm usually good with words.  The longer we were together the more at ease I became.   

Today,  we're all going camping.  (How am I going to sleep in a tent with a bunch of dudes? ) I just hope my comfort from yesterday bleeds through today.  

It's just camping for one night.   Then I leave Monday for a 4 day skill building trip.  Friday to drive a group to the Olympic Coast in a minibus (I KNOW) and then return the same day.  I leave the next day for a 6 day backpacking trip.  

Somewhere in there I have to find the time to finish my Study plan for grad schoo, and prepare for the first semester.  Woo-Hoo Masters degree!

Seattle feels like I've made a mistake.  Like I've been living on the wrong coast for all these years and I've finally come home. 

Terror

Sometimes I choose to do things that leave me with macabre sense of doom.  Moving 3,000+ miles away from familiarity to the unknown is one of those things.

I'm scared.

Today is Garvey's 5th birthday and it's that thought which finally pushes the tears from their eye side waiting room rolling down the surface of my cheek, and finally,soaking into my sweatshirt.  He has no idea that I'll be back. That I wouldn't abandon him for the world.  I know he's just a dog, but that knowledge doesn't make leaving him any easier.

Terror is an ant that crawls beneath your skin when you have no idea what's next.  It crawls from the dermis through the subcutaneous tissue, and settles in an organ or two.  Rooting around and kicking up dirt until it chooses to settle somewhere for the night.  The next morning the same ant, along with its holographic brethren, wakes up and the fear begins again.  Only this time it feels like there's an ant hill throwing a kegger in your digestive system.

No matter how often anyone tells me I'll be okay it won't mean anything until I feel it.  "The things we must learn before we do them, we learn by doing them."  I just want to be okay. I just want people to like me. I don't want to stand in front of the mirror criticizing every centimeter of myself.  I don't want to care about what people will think, but I do.

My dog likes me.  Having him would make this so much easier.  On an extra scary day I could come home and lay on the floor and fall willing victim to his loving assault.  I won't have that safety net.  That sucks. How can I remember to be enough of myself in the midst of all this terror and change?