I took a few moments this morning to read some blogs that I’ve been sadly neglecting and I realized that I hadn’t written anything in two weeks. So what’s been going on? I’ve been busy.
Three weeks ago I injured my ankle during a 14-mile run. The following week I laid low and caught up on some projects at home for a few clients while letting my foot rest. The next weekend I went to the mountains with Kevin and Melissa to get some practice in for the Blue Ridge Relay race in September. My foot still being injured I made a doctors appointment for the next week. X-rays didn’t show any damage and I was told that the muscles were overused and to give it more rest time. I continued to catch up on work from home. Training for our marathon officially began last Monday, but I’ve been taking it easy on my ankle to make sure I’m fresh for the team in just two and a half weeks. Last week, we brewed our third beer – a Dogfish Head 90 minute IPA clone – and we’ll be bottling it in just over a week. Very much looking forward to that. And this week, Melissa’s been in town hanging out and having fun. We’ve been enjoying the cuisine here in Athens, drinks, beer pong at local bars, and dancing (which was really more like undulating with the crowd of people).
So that’s what I’ve been up to in a nutshell.
I’ll probably write again soon, and it’ll probably be about our brew.
One of my best friends, Melissa, celebrated her 23rd birthday this past weekend in Charlotte. In addition to the large quantities of alcohol consumed there were also a large number of photos and videos made, some of which she has combined into a single awesome video of a portion of the night.
It doesn’t matter how tough we are trauma always leaves a scar. It follows us home, it changes our lives; trauma messes everybody up. But, maybe that’s the point. All the pain and the fear and the crap; maybe going through all that is what keeps us moving forward. It’s what pushes us. Maybe we have to get a little messed up before we can step up.
There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. … A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise, shall give him no peace. It is a deliverance which does not deliver. In the attempt his genius deserts him; no muse befriends; no invention, no hope. …
Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being. …
It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude. …
The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency; a reverence for our past act or word, because the eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit than our past acts, and we are loath to disappoint them. …
Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.
This is me. I make mistakes. I am not perfect. This is me, for better or for worse. Take it. Leave it. Love it. Hate it. This is me.
Edit: It was brought to my attention that this sounded angry and defensive while it wasn’t meant to. It was one of those in-the-moment thoughts and I don’t remember exactly what that thought was.
Enter today – a sunny morning with near perfect temperatures hovering around 50. I woke up to the sun pouring in through my windows, bundled up in a mass of white 300-count cotton. Exhausted from a busy, emotional, challenging, yet enlightening week and refreshed, energized and excited to begin the day and enter what looks to be a promising and fun weekend.
I’m going hiking and camping this weekend with a group of people, one of whom being one of my best friends and favorite people, Melissa. We’re going to Mount Mitchell, the highest peak east of the Mississippi River. It’ll probably be in the teens at night and in the 40s during the day if we’re lucky. Nonetheless I imagine it will be a nice time. Challenging to say the least, but fun.
The weather channel was saying how there’s another cold front coming through Saturday evening that is likely to dump snow on higher elevations. I haven’t seen snow in years, and I miss it. Granted, I’d rather not sleep in it, but how many other times in my life will I be sane enough to go camping in the dead of winter at six-thousand feet up? Actually, I just got word of it being 1.2 degrees there last night. Crazy? Maybe I’m not so sane after all.
Winter brings many things, the cold, it stings
chapped lips, and often, tired hearts, weary
just wanting the warmth of the summer again
During the fall and winter, things die. Animals bulk up with food and go into hibernation, birds fly south for warmth, and leaves and trees shed their foliage, wither in a struggle for survival – to hold it out until spring. Frozen leaves crunch underfoot as gray skies neutralize the colors of everything. It’s cold, and it’ll be hard, but spring is near. Spring is near.