This year was my last spring break. This year there are a lot of 'lasts' for me but there are also a lot of firsts. My first house, my first garden, my first full time job, my first summer in Tyler. Also, my last year in college, my last summer vacation (if you'd call it that anymore, since I'm working full time), my last year living at home, even having anything left at home. I'm kind of in this push and pull between knowing myself but still having so many things left to discover.
In March, Grace, Serena and I drove 16 hours to Carbondale to stay one week with Regan and Evan. We drove through the mountains the night we arrived; it was so dark outside I didn't realize how overwhelmingly large they were until the next day, we couldn't even see them. It was unnerving but wonderful driving half-asleep through bridges carved in the middle of the mountains, then finding out we are so small compared to them. I spent most of my time in awe, just gazing at everything. It's crazy to imagine how cold it is at the top of the snow-capped mountains, when it's a cool 40 or 50 degrees below.
I remember going to a bakery in Basalt that had the best banana bread, almost as good as Maggie's memaw makes it. It's logo is a little animated orange and now that I've left, I can't think of the name. I even tried to look it up one day. There's something special about actually being somewhere. You can see pictures of places and people, too, like I look back on my pictures of Colorado, but it's astronomically different to be there, or to know that person. That's why I love pictures, because I can remember how everything felt around me in a certain moment.
I really just love things that I've never seen before, I love discovery. It's the greatest thing to me when I set foot in a new place, when I feel a new atmosphere, just to know that there are so many places to be, and endless things that I haven't yet done. The adventure excites me, but is frightening and ambiguous at the same time, and I feel that will be an ongoing struggle throughout my life of whether to stay or go, whether to be content where I am and to settle some place or keep moving. I want to be content with where I am in life, with where I decide to settle, because one day we all do. But, I want to keep my mind and my heart open and keep travelling nonetheless.
-ryan