Things have been a little hectic around here with all the weddings and traveling that has been going on. I sort of missed the timing on looking back to when Walker moved to Seattle but I still wanted to share.
Last year at the very beginning of June Walker moved to Seattle. I went along and took a 2 week vacation with him while he settled in. Here are some of my favorite memories from that time. Even though it was Walker’s second time there it was all new because the first trip lasted about 36 hours and was basically spend interviewing.
It’s day 31 in the blog every day in May challenge! Can you believe it! I blogged all 31 days! I’m so proud of that and I’m so happy with all I’ve shared. I hope now you have an even better idea of who I am. So the prompt to day is: a vivid memory.
Memories are a funny thing. I remember listening to a radio lab episode about memories and how the more we recall a certain event the more it changes in our minds. So our favorite memories are the ones that have changed the most for us. Fun fact.
I’m going to tell you about the day Katie and I first arrived in Austin at the end of a 3 day drive to move there. I will set the scene a little. On the first day of the journey I got a call that the position that I was applying for, the one I made it to the final 2 of, was given to the other candidate. So I was jobless. We had yet to choose an apartment and had booked 4 days at a hostel/hotel. So we were homeless.
On the afternoon of the 3rd day of driving we made it into Austin. I remember driving through downtown thinking, holy cow, this is where I’ll be living now. We drove through downtown and ended up on the feeder of I-35 heading north. We were looking for our hostel, the Roadway Inn, when I realized we had passed it. I mentioned it to Katie and she took a pretty quick right into a parking lot. While doing so she ran over a median in the parking lot and the car stopped quickly. It didn’t end up being too terrible but the muffler had been damaged and as such made a super loud and obnoxious noise when the car was on. So here we are in the middle of Austin, it’s late August and therefore extremely hot, I’m jobless, we are homeless, the the car needs to be fixed. Wonderful. At this point we could have totally freaked out but we we calmer than I ever could have imagined and made our way to the hostel.
We checked in, unloaded our few belongings from the car, and asked the attendant to direct us to food. We headed down Dean Keeton toward campus and where it meets up with Guadalupe right across the street we saw a restaurant called Madam Mam’s. They served Thai food and that sounded good, plus we were super hot and tired from our walk to get there. (Turns out I would visit Madam Mam’s many a time while living in Austin, it was one of my favorites-plus it was really close to my work)
We split a meal since we were being frugal, remember I was jobless, and when we were done we took our leftover’s back to the hostel. Once we were back we took care of some business. Katie talked to her parents about the car. We watched some summer Olympics on tv and talked about how not hot we thought Michael Phelps was. Later that evening we decided to take a dip in the pool out front. It was somewhat refreshing and kind of funny because the freeway was right over us.
Then we went to bed in a new strange place with a lot of hope and an equal amount of apprehension.
It’s day 30 of the blog every day in May challenge! Only one more day to go! The prompt today is: React to this term: Letting Go.
When I hear the phrase letting go I immediately think of change and I’ve never been particularly good with change. I think of regret, sadness, nostalgia, resistance, anger. For me letting go doesn’t conjure up any happy thoughts. I don’t think of a release, of the future, of happiness. I wish I were more that way but I’m not.
Outwardly it may seem that I’ve gotten better at letting go but I’ve just gotten better at hiding my outward emotions and tucking them away. It makes it easier initially but it eventually comes up later and all those sad thoughts comes flooding up.
Letting go is something I’m constantly dealing with. I even project it into my future. Thinking of things and events that will come up that I won’t want to let go of. I get sad for things that haven’t even happened. I get sad watching other people having to let go.
I know letting go can be such a positive force and I can’t wait for the day I agree but for now letting go for me is sad.
