One Week Left - AZ

I have one week left of this amazing ride I have been on in Arizona. One week I will have my car packed and heading home. This to be just a memory, one of many to come this year. 

I need this last week. I don’t feel ready in the slightest. I want to hold on tight and not let this feeling go. I am healing here. I am experiencing so much positive here. I am finding myself here. 

What happens when I go back? Do I put back on the chains I wore? I don’t want to. Do I pick back up into the mindset of endurance instead of joyously living again? I don’t want to. Do I stumble backwards (two steps forward, one step back mentality)? I don’t want to. 

I am nervous in going back. I have been able to be strong here. I have been able to stand on my own two feet and take on the world alone here. I have been able to face so many fears here. I have been finding myself slowly but surely here. 

I have found joy as I picked my way through the red rocks in Sedona. I have found strength in sitting in a restaurant alone for the first time in my life, enjoying a fancy meal with only myself as company. I have found support and inspiration here from my friend who is so gracefully moving through her own very hard situation. I have found peace here in standing on top of the peaks, looking down on a sunny world below. I have been finding myself in each moment, each breath, each feeling here. 

What if I lose that again? 

What if this newfound freedom is only here? What if I don’t carry it with me back to Oregon? I am fearful of that. I am very fearful of that. 

I have one more week. I plan to not waste a minute of it. And I will try to put the looming trip home out of my mind. I want to continue to lean in. I want to continue to absorb everything this trip and journey has for me before I allow too much anxiety to creep in on my next phase ahead. 

One day at a time. And I have 7 of them. I think a lot more healing can occur in 7 days. Don’t you? What is one thing that your future self in one week's time will thank you for pursuing starting today? Don’t wait! Go after it. It is only but a week. And what a good cause it is for.