dealing. please don't forget about me.

okay. go.
go to some place else.
somewhere away from here.
away from my new home. my new friends.
say goodbye to them.
say a prolonged 'au revoir' to everything.
wave goodbye to all the things you hoped to do and all the people you hoped to see again. look back once and feel a slight regret for all the seemingly lost experiences and forever gone, or never to come, memories.
look back, but keep moving forward.
don't forget that memories are always being created. a new history, a new story.
remember that yesterday will always be there and will only be as positive as you make the present. the gift of now.
it may be unfortunate and not what you expected or even necessarily wanted, but it is life. that is part of the beauty of being alive. spontaneity.
it is all a process and sometimes you may not see or expect the changes that present themselves as you round the bend, but that doesn't make it bad.
look forward to the future and be excited about the present.
live. and love.
---
explanation:
when hiking down from half-dome, i hurt my ankle. for most people a slight ankle sprain wouldn't be that big of a deal, but it is no longer something i take lightly. or happily. for those of you who don't know, i have been dealing with an ankle injury for the last two years. it has kept me from doing so many things i love to do- not that it was a bad thing. i was also able to learn new things and grow and develop in ways i may have not had i been healthy and without injury. but it was still not the most fun. so, a month ago i started going to the physical therapist again and my ankle became 100% once more. i ran for the first time in two years and climbed without grimacing. i was able to enjoy every move i made instead of worrying if my ankle would swell and hurt. i had just over three weeks of this bliss before twisting it three and a half miles from the car. it was not a re-injury, per say, but it was not something i was feeling positive about.
because of this, karlei and i decided it wouldn't make sense to stay in yosemite and try to wait a week or two for my ankle to heal when we could be having adventures elsewhere. i was really bummed about leaving yosemite. it seemed so all-of-a-sudden.
i got really comfortable there and i felt like it was a place i could easily exist. i fit in. i just had to remember that yosemite will always be there, waiting for me. that everything happens for a reason, and the time had come to make new and different memories. sometimes it is hard to leave the comfort of one place and have the road bring change. but change is growth. and that is okay.
but "growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell" (ed abbey said that) and i don't want to be cancerous either.
i want to go home with a strong sense of identity (not that i necessarily lack an individual self, just that i don't want to be the same as i have always been - i don't want to reach a stagnant place) and maybe this is how i build that and create a stronger me.
"home" has become a slightly scary place and leaving yosemite puts me one step closer to being back there. back to the place that makes it so hard to be anything other than what i have always been. i am still learning.
i think i was so hesitant to leave because i liked the place i was at in life. i was afraid of regressing.
i don't want to forget about the places i have seen and the people i have met. i want them to know they have left an impression on me and i hope i have left some sort of impression on them too. i don't want to go easily out of their mind and become nothing more than just another face in the background of a photograph.
so, please. don't forget about me.

i am on the road again. i must keep on keepin' on.