Home for the Holidays!

Currently, I’m headed back to Oregon after spending the holidays in Ohio.  I struggled earlier this year on deciding whether or not it would be wise to come home at all for Christmas.  Traveling is really hard on the body and I have to do so much every other time of the year, its nice to have time when I can stay put longer than a few  weeks.  I had also been in such a great routine this fall, it was tough to convince myself that it might be an ok/ good test of focus to be in a different environment. Thanks to the slight, yet surprising, encouragement and support from Coach Row, I decided to go for it.   While my career goals and dreams seem to be most important things right now, they are really just vital pieces to a larger, more rounded, complete, and fulfilling final outcome called My Life.  

The reason I am even in the position I am in today is in large part because of my family. While the weather remains just as grey as ever in NE Ohio and the roads I ran on as a high schooler go past the same old lots and farm fields, Father Time continues to rudely remind me how long I have been away by adding years to the people I love.  Whether its my little cousin who is now beating computer games and speaking in full sentences or my grandparents who are moving just a tad slower or my dad who takes longer to recover from exercising like a 20 year old....Life is always a gift and it is important for me to spend as much time as I can with these people who have given me so much of theirs.  When I find myself wanting to be selfish with my life and do only what I want to do, I remind myself that, whether I remember it or not, these people invested a large part of their youth and life to raise me and give me what I have today.  Sometimes I wonder how nice it really is for them...having me home.  Try as I might to be pleasant and helpful, my old tendencies from years of childhood in that familiar environment, flood back to me.  Spreading my things across the entire house, shooting my brother dirty looks, and bragging about how great everything in Oregon is.  I guess I’ll just trust them when they tell me they love me and maybe one day I’ll figure it out with my own family.  Anyway, it was fun to see everyone and it beat sitting alone opening mail packages.  I am blessed! Love you all!