a year ago

A year ago today, I had just arrived in Stanley. I was very homesick and wondering the heck I had gotten myself into. It snowed the first day I was there, so my Dad and I went to Ketchum where I was relieved to find a Starbucks (I was away from Asheville, I could be happy about a chain coffee store and not get in trouble for shopping at an un-local establishment!). I remember after Dad left, I went shopping in Boise for things to make my room cozy. I remember this because usually I'm a tightwad, but that day I pretended that I was my friend Betsy and I bought a lamp, two sweater drawers and two tiny plastic plates that I put my hair rubber bands on. I enjoyed all of those things in my room all summer long and still do here at home. Every night at the beginning of last summer, I drank milk and watched Juno on my ipod. I must've watched that movie 30 times. I also swam in the hot springs pool every night. I may have been lonely, but I knew a good thing when I saw it! I remember having the whole pool to myself and being amazed at how big the sky was out there.

Pat arrived two days after I did, but we're both shy (no really, it's true), so it took us awhile to get to know each other (and let's be honest, we had each scope out all the possibilities!). I remember seeing him when he walked in the front door of the lodge. I was on my computer, the computer I'm on now. He remembers it too. I'll keep the details for us, both we both noticed each other.

At the time, I had no idea how ready I was to love. Oh, don't get me wrong, I was still suspicious when we first started getting to know each other. I assumed he was some sort of "player", because I protectively assumed all guys were playing some sort of game. But he certainly had a different act than any guy that I had met. He was straightforward. I thought, "oh, you think you can fool me with sincerity? Yeah, I can see straight through that." But I couldn't. He was himself.

I am amazed at how much things have changed since then and how some things haven't. My heart keeps opening more. That has just never happened to me before. In the past, I was open at the beginning of a relationship, but as I got to know somebody, I got more and more closed. With Pat, it seems the more I know him, the more I love him and the more I'm free to be myself. Yes, some of that was the timing, I was finally ready to let go and let somebody in, but a lot of it was him too.

Enough with the mushiness. All I'm saying, is that those first days of loneliness and wandering in a new situation were totally worth the uncomfortability. I'm a bit jealous of our friends that are going back to the ranch and getting to roam through those beautiful views all over again. But home is where Pat is now.