Anyway, as we're driving, Keturah asks us each how long we've been home. Without even thinking, I blurt out "oh, about two months" and its not until I'm actually speaking the words out loud that I realize "wait, it's been three." Three months and one day, to be exact. And my mind was blown. Almost as blown as it was 10 days ago when I realized that July 31st, 2014 was the day that I left for France last year and it was already a whole year later. As blown as it was again when I skyped my host family a week ago and realized that was the first time I had seen their faces since May 8th (faces I miss a lot, by the way).
As I said in this blog many times before, time flies.
I've always been a person who likes to stay busy, make plans, have something to look forward to, and coming back home has been no exception. So I guess what is just still so hard to grasp is how quickly my life became so normal again. I was home less than two weeks before I was heading off to a friend's wedding, less than a month before I started a brand new full time job, less than 6 weeks until I was taking normal summer weekend trips to Ocean City.
And I love all this, by the way. I love that I'm the type of person that can easily adapt to my situations. You could stick me in a pick-up truck hauling gravel in eastern Kentucky or a cafe drinking espresso in Paris and either way I'm gonna figure out how to enjoy myself. Learning where you fit in back in the town you grew up in is a little bit different though.
The majority of my childhood and high school friends are gone, just as I was. I'm lucky that a vast majority of my college friends ended up (for the time being) in the DC area, but even hanging out with them sometimes takes planning and advance notice. My ASP friends are literally all over the country.
Frequently, I find myself thanking God for my Jazzercise girls, and their unconditional support and friendship. And let me just say how much I love these women real quick. Besides my new job, my other major occupier of time this summer has been my Jazzercise instructor training with my friend Jen. It's been an eye-opening, intense, sweaty, and super fun experience so far that has made me appreciate the women I've come to love through this program so much more. (And for those of you who need to step into 2015 and see how awesome this program is, watch this video and then report back about when you wanna come to class with me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BBXh4d2pb0)
And here's Jen and I before our first workshop rehearsal last weekend! Cute was an understatement, am I right?
(Also, you also know you've become addicted to your workout when you decide to take a morning off from working out and your body wakes you up anyway. I had fully planned to sleep in until 6:30 this morning, but I was up and alert at 5. I have always been a morning person, but even this feels a little extreme. So, I'm blogging instead. And I'm totally not trying to be one of those people right now who talk about how awesome they are for getting up early...please don't hate me. I'm only successful at this because I go to bed at 10:00 pm most nights and have like no social life.)
So back to the point I'm attempting to make: schedules and routines, for the most part, occupy our lives. I think for a lot of people, that's what forces them to get out of the country and try crazy new experiences. They want the thrill of something completely different than they are used to. That both was and wasn't the case for me, because I love schedules and routines. Get me a list to check off any day of the week and i'll make it happen. I wanted to get out and away just because I knew that most likely I wouldn't have as little commitments as I did at the age of 24 and I might not have an opportunity to travel as freely as I did for 9 months at another time in my life. But here's the thing: routines follow you abroad just as they do at home. Even though you're living amongst the French Alps, you still get into a rhythm. I still had responsibilities, people that were counting on me to be in a certain place at a certain time every day. My weekends were unpredictable, but my weekends at home can be unpredictable too, if I choose to make them that way. Adventure can be in the little things just as much as it can be in the big things. Perspective is all that matters.
As long as I'm still enjoying my day to day life, I don't get scared of getting stuck. I'm an adult after all; I should be waking up every day, attempting to contribute to society at large. And lucky for me, I have found a job that I do want to invest in and enjoy going to every day. I have my jazzercise certification and teaching to look forward to, weekend trips out of the state to keep me excited, moving out of my parents house this fall to plan for. My life is good and you won't hear me complaining. I guess I just didn't think it would all come together so fast. Am I selling myself short by being as surprised as I am that it did? Am I being cocky if I say I'm not surprised? I don't know, I have far from all the answers. All I can do is make the most out of every day. (Yeah, that's pretty cliche, get over it.)
