unpacking

[written at 9:20 this morning] 

it's been quite warm (we hit a record the other day for record high during this time of the year!) but early today the sun was shy and the clouds replaced its usual greeting. i noticed this as i rushed to my car after a busy morning, late for work. as i strapped my on seatbelt and pulled out into the street, i realized i felt a breeze. it was coming from the windows which were still cracked to ventilate yesterday's heat. though it wasn't warm this morning, it wasn't unnecessarily chilly, so i kept them that way as i sped on.

gloomy as the outside appeared, for me there was a different quality to it. a familiar atmospheric texture. i couldn't put my finger on it.

my mind was preoccupied with other thoughts, but it occasionally dipped back into a vague recognition of this somewhat recognizable ambiance as i drove.

unlike the normal overcast utah mornings, it wasn't cold, and i could feel water in the air though the rain hadn't made its way down yet.

it wasn't until i caught a scent as i rounded a slight bend in the road that i realized what it was. the faint smell was cigarette smoke, diluted by the smell of oncoming rain. that's when it donned on me:

new york.

of course. many of my memories from my internship two summers ago were fraught with this smell, feel, and surrounding environment. even the current road construction added to it. the only difference was that i was driving to work this time, rather than walking, and i was on the other side of the country.

i let my mind wander back to reminisce. the sporadic rain storms, walking to society, the crazy heat, the dynamics of various circumstances and relationships, the friends that i'd met there, so many fascinating strangers, the curiosity and wonder and awe that i tried to maintain throughout the entirety of my total eight weeks there.

i missed it.
all of it.
and i missed them.
and for a brief moment, i missed the me that was there.

but the other day, i penned it in black and white as i wrote to a friend:
she's still in me, somewhere.

----

in many aspects, i think i was a better person in new york.
the circumstances made it easier for me to function at my optimum capacity.

but, recently i heard a devotional by stanley g. ellis, who gave some solid advice about handling the "temporary stages of your life"...which can last a lot longer sometimes than we anticipate:

unpack your bags.

"be where we are. have an attitude as for years...be there, until you're not. the eternal attitude of a transient isn't good....[that] attitude....will rob you of much joy and satisfaction...and will cause the...community to lose the many contributions you could make."

that kind of hit me hard.
i'm not in new york now.
and i don't know when i'll return.

but -- what good did it do for me, if i only let that growth affect me while i'm there? or any place of growth, for that matter?

i need to apply that here. now. and i need to stop waiting for my future goals to be recognized to make me into the person i want to become. because chances are, as i focus on working harder to be that person now, i'll be a much better version of her later, and will be more prepared and ready when the rubber hits the road as those goals are actualized.

it's okay to miss times, places, circumstances, people, and discoveries that brought out the best in me. but i realized that it's almost like spitting in the faces of those people and places if i let whatever they made me into die simply because i don't want to make the effort to find and apply their effects within myself again.

---

well. that post didn't go where i thought it would go.
it was just going to say, "this morning felt gloomy but refreshing outside and i missed new york."
but i suppose i needed to remind myself of what i ended up writing.