adieu

it's so strange the way that along with the passing time pass friends, memories, jobs, loves, experiences, lessons, etc...etc. with each closing chapter, we're faced with yet another set of goodbyes, another rendezvous with the need to fill up the spaces those goodbyes left you with, and another need to reshape/redefine/rethink who we want to be and who we will be with the new people that will eventually fill those new spaces.

i'm trying to come to a place where goodbyes are less of an end, and more of a beginning for the chance of glorious reunions, endless reminiscing, and an opportunity to find new people to love and be loved by. rather than it being a moment of loss, goodbyes can be chances to grow separately, embark on our own adventures, and share with one another what our chosen paths have shown us. rather than greeting the conclusion of yet another season of life with tears and the desire to resist the imminent changes the coming season is sure to bring, instead this season should be welcomed and adored, with an ever-increasing amount of people to share life with.

out with the old (meaning freeing the ones i've come to adore these past 4 years to be who & where they must be for now), and in with the new (meaning homes/adventures/companions/and more.)

breathing in the breeze

sometimes a change of perspective is what we most need. this can mean a reinterpretation of memories of the past that give you some sense of new found peace/freedom. or this can mean taking the hand of your love, the hand promising your feet won't lose their hold on those steep slants of the tiled roof, so that you can stand tall with the trees.

from that very place, that space where it's just you, and me, and the trees and the breeze and that moon...that ever-present, lively moonshine pouring down and wiping our minds clean of all those thoughts/ideas/feelings that when you get down to it, just don't matter. there we both can be pure, there we both can be still and know who and what and where and why we love, why we're waking day after day.

and even though we have to eventually leave this midnight oasis, for now our feet really have left the ground. and as for the ground, it can't steal the moments we just made, the beauty we just shared.

pounding.

there are moments when you're most certainly more alive than others.

be it those times that you're lost in the growing pound of your heart, the faint taste of salt seasoning your thirsty lips, and your weary lungs drawing in the morning air that keeps the cycle going, while your legs are screaming as you force them to continue along the winding country road, 13.1 miles and counting.

or when you're rolling on to your back, your breath buried somewhere deep in your chest from the impact, your hands grazing the newly exposed flesh of your chin and chest brought to life by your own lapse of carelessness. remembering the moment of reveling in the freedom of the cool summer air kissing your face changing abruptly to a face full of earth and a body full of  shock and a mountain bike full of devastation.

or maybe those times that you're standing on the edge of certain death, toeing the edge of a three hundred and nine foot waterfall, tasting the almighty fall's mist that's hitting your tongue, swallowing the warm air around you.

or when you're climbing/crawling/dragging yourself up mt. sopris stone by stone, enveloped by clouds and trying to ignore the adrenaline threatening to overtake you as you peer left and right to immediate drop offs that whisper of your potential death.

these are the times when you become aware of what should be a self-evident truth, though one we so often forget - the truth of your very existence, the reality of you and your breath and heartbeat and sweat and blood and what we westerners have labeled your 'soul.' it's these experiences that shake you from the insidious complacency always threatening to overtake you. though it may mean anxiety, though it may mean ache, at least you know this one truth:

you're alive.