Each time I left this place at the end of a contract, I believed I would return in a few years but sobbed until I couldn’t see The Mountain in the rearview mirror any more.
The only change I see in 27 years is your hair color! I know how you feel about your special place - I have several of them, too. Fortunately, one of them is 15 minutes away. Those places of power are the hardest to give up. I am becoming more and more content to just stay in my backyard and enjoy the new bugs and birds that visit as I add native prairie plants, or some favorite ornamentals to the landscape. I've been to the Garden of the Gods and Pikes Peak with an old friend. The wildfires around Colorado Springs were pretty bad before my visit. I've downsized several times and it's painful, yet freeing. Some things I regret tossing. Most things I've never thought about since. Though we leave behind the places of healing, we take what they've given with us, to create our own Gardens of the Gods. It's better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all, as the adage goes. Memories in quiet moments bring these places back to us.
This trip very nearly didn't have any reason to happen. One of the wildfires at Colorado Springs several years ago got close to my storage unit. I could stand at the unit and see the scar on the ridge.
A select handful of items came back in my checked luggage instead of being in the freight shipment. Those got unpacked today, along with memories attached to them.
Usually sorting and winnowing is not so much in one go and usually there is not so much emotional impact in doing it. This was a lot. I'm glad to be finished with this trip. I did figure out long ago that the more I love, the more inevitable future loss will hurt. It's part and parcel of loving.
Thanks for sharing, Bonnie. I've been doing the same decluttering, downsizing, but without help and without much success, AND I've been to the top of Pike's Peak, so I could totally feel what you are going through. Best wishes for return home and the rest of life.
I'm sure I can do more sorting and winnowing, but this was the main portion. Normally it doesn't go well. The pressure of needing to tell shippers what I really want to keep early in the trip made me focus. Not that I would recommend putting yourself through it when you have the option of an easier pace, but that's what it took to make me do it.
Today I am very discombobulated. Getting here from Denver involved a long layover in an smallish airport that wasn't the most comfortable, so it was an extra long trip. But it went okay. This is home now. I am back. It's good to be with my sweetie again.
The only change I see in 27 years is your hair color! I know how you feel about your special place - I have several of them, too. Fortunately, one of them is 15 minutes away. Those places of power are the hardest to give up. I am becoming more and more content to just stay in my backyard and enjoy the new bugs and birds that visit as I add native prairie plants, or some favorite ornamentals to the landscape. I've been to the Garden of the Gods and Pikes Peak with an old friend. The wildfires around Colorado Springs were pretty bad before my visit. I've downsized several times and it's painful, yet freeing. Some things I regret tossing. Most things I've never thought about since. Though we leave behind the places of healing, we take what they've given with us, to create our own Gardens of the Gods. It's better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all, as the adage goes. Memories in quiet moments bring these places back to us.
This trip very nearly didn't have any reason to happen. One of the wildfires at Colorado Springs several years ago got close to my storage unit. I could stand at the unit and see the scar on the ridge.
A select handful of items came back in my checked luggage instead of being in the freight shipment. Those got unpacked today, along with memories attached to them.
Usually sorting and winnowing is not so much in one go and usually there is not so much emotional impact in doing it. This was a lot. I'm glad to be finished with this trip. I did figure out long ago that the more I love, the more inevitable future loss will hurt. It's part and parcel of loving.
So very true
Thanks for sharing, Bonnie. I've been doing the same decluttering, downsizing, but without help and without much success, AND I've been to the top of Pike's Peak, so I could totally feel what you are going through. Best wishes for return home and the rest of life.
I'm sure I can do more sorting and winnowing, but this was the main portion. Normally it doesn't go well. The pressure of needing to tell shippers what I really want to keep early in the trip made me focus. Not that I would recommend putting yourself through it when you have the option of an easier pace, but that's what it took to make me do it.
Today I am very discombobulated. Getting here from Denver involved a long layover in an smallish airport that wasn't the most comfortable, so it was an extra long trip. But it went okay. This is home now. I am back. It's good to be with my sweetie again.