Monday, January 15, 2007

Truly down a path


I'm waiting to hear on a job this week. A job that I am certain, while seasonal in nature, will send me down a different path. It's the aftermath I'm scared of, I feel a shift. That's the only way to describe it, a shift. Things are shifting, moving, and I know I gotta let them, but there's unknown there. In brief, I would be spending my summer on the AT here in Maine, as a ridgerunner/caretaker of 1 of 4 backcountry sites. It's a dream job I've wanted ever since I returned from my thru-hike, yet up til this year it just wasn't feasible.

I'm still not sure it is this year either.

I'm not 22 y/o and just out of college, I have responsibilities, some of them even adult type. This will require some difficult (maybe) conversations with my brother, my mother, my ex-husband and anyone else of consequence in my life. I have to find a home for my cat for the summer, I have to talk to my landlord and see if a sublet it even possible (doubtful).

There's a high degree of certainty the offer will come in by later this week and then all these things have to align and get worked out. I won't be home much this summer, and never on weekends, which means most usual summer plans will not involve me this year, that's hard to stomach. Last time I did this, in 02, I came back to mostly the same circumstances, but there were new people in friend's lives and I didn't always fit the same way anymore.

That's the shift. It's there, I feel it, I'm resisting it, yet I'm drawn to it. And at this point, it's pretty much inevitable. Change must happen, but change is hard.