Planes and Goodbyes

I’m on the plane on my way back home from…home? I flew back to Gilbert Monday night after work for Goog’s graduation, and boy were those days loaded!

Tuesday morning, I woke up and went to the photography place because mom wanted updated pictures of me since my last formal pictures were from my senior year of high school. That afternoon, I napped for three hours, which was really nice since I’ve been keeping a pretty busy social schedule since I got to Colorado. Tuesday night was the last family dinner we will have with everyone there indefinitely. Mom ended up crying and I was thinking about how sad that really is. After dinner, I met up with the girls for a drink at Applebee’s, and I started thinking about the same things there.

Wednesday, I woke up and hung out by the pool for a couple hours. After showering off, I headed to the dentist to take care of my biannual checkup, but even there I realized I couldn’t schedule my next appointment since I have no idea when I’ll be back. On my way to the appointment however, I got a call from a school in the Glendale School District where I had turned in an application and they wanted to schedule an interview! Grandma and Grandpa showed up after a delayed flight schedule that evening and we all headed to Meredith’s graduation at Chandler High.

This morning, I woke up early and headed to my interview where I was offered the job after the hour of questions and talking. That made me feel a lot better that I am already batting 1000 as far as interviews and job offers go. Unfortunately, that situation didn’t seem like the best fit for me so I will keep looking until the right thing shows up. We hung out with the g-rents all afternoon and I filled out ten more applications for schools throughout Colorado. Goog’s dinner celebration was at Charleston’s, and after dinner I had to say all my goodbyes.

Mom has already scheduled her visit to come see me in two weeks, so that one wasn’t going to be hard, but saying goodbye to Grandma and Grandpa made me start tearing up. They are getting so much older, and each time I wonder if that’s the last time I’m going to see them or not since they live across the country. Then, I turned to say goodbye to everyone else. I almost completely lost it saying goodbye to Melinda and Meredith. We didn’t always get along the best growing up, but I love those two more than anything and would give my life to make sure they were happy. It’s hard not knowing when I’m going to get to see them next. Maybe I’ll be home for Christmas, but who knows depending on the job situation!

So here I am on the plane with tears streaming down my face as I listen to my bluegrass with their picture on the seat next to me as I stare out the window at Jupiter as it follows me in the sky everywhere I go. (Thank goodness there are only 9 people on my flight so everyone is spread out and not watching me right now!)

Seeing Jupiter out there reminds me of all the events in the past week, especially Saturday, but let me back up a little bit…

Anyone who talks to me knows how much I love my job. Going into the office doesn’t even seem like work to me (but trust me, it’s one of the busiest and most stressful offices in the park, despite what I make it seem like!), and my hike days don’t even seem fair when I think that I’m getting paid to hike. Knowing all that, Saturday has got to be hands down my favorite day at work.

As we neared the last hour of work, I had started running out of things to clean and organize for the day. At that point, a family came in so I went up front to help them out. What looked like three generations of females came up to the counter, with the young girl (maybe 12-14?) tried to get her mom to ask me a question. The mom finally gave in and said that she was trying to get her daughter to ask me, but that they had a question.

They had been out walking around Sprague Lake and came across the discreet handicap sign, designating our accessible backcountry campsite, and wanted to know what that was all about. I started talking to the young girl and asked her if she liked camping. In her response, I could tell through her excitement that she had some sort of disability, but really wanted to go camping! Her mom asked if the site was only designated for physical disabilities, and I assured her that anyone could use it if they felt that it would be a good fit.

All three women got so excited. I pulled down some pictures to show them the site, but they told me that they hiked back to the clearing and sat down at the picnic table for a while, just looking at the site, imagining their own private camping experience back there. The mom told me that her husband had just lost his job and they were trying to make ends meet, but wanted to keep that as an option to keep their daughter’s spirits up. She wondered if she needed any kind of documentation or doctor’s note to use the site, but I assured her it would be ok.

When the three left, they were full of smiles and tears of joy, and all shook my hand on their way out. I went back into the office and just started crying myself, thinking about the joy that had just been brought to them.

How neat is it that RMNP would have an accessible site so that even people with disabilities or who would not, under normal circumstances, be able to hike far to a backcountry campsite can have their own similar backcountry experience?! I am so proud to be a part of that community that can provide for opportunities such as those.

Saturday night after dinner, Tom and I headed up to hang out with Jupiter on a night hike up to Gem Lake. We left around 10pm and I got back to my place by 2am, but the stars were amazing, especially in contrast with the full moon and town lights! We hiked up to the lake and then climbed the rock wall behind it to get up above for the best views.

Sitting on a giant rock like that always makes me think a lot, and based on my sunburns this spring, you can tell I do a lot of rock sitting. Getting out into the “wild” like that is like soul food for me. I can’t be stuck inside for long periods of time or I start to go crazy. I think that’s part of why I wasn’t able to completely wrap my mind around the idea of teaching in the valley. I need to have a place I can go to distress, decompose, and just think.

So sure it’s been REALLY hard saying goodbye to all the parts of Arizona I love, but now it’s off to new and exciting adventures. I should be landing in half an hour (this won’t be posted until later since there is obviously no internet connection on the plane), and then driving back to Estes. For now, that’s my home, but who knows what’s coming my way after that. I am positive there’s some sort of bigger, better plan out there for me—I just don’t know what it is yet and for once, I think I’m ok with that.