These past several days I have felt an array of emotions that I haven’t been able to place. I have felt as if I was going to burst into tears every second for the past week. I didn’t know why or where these feelings and emotions were coming from.
Until it hit me, I am leaving in 4 months for a year. A whole year. A whole year without my family. Without being able to just pick up the phone and call my sisters to tell them some stupid joke from the day. A whole year without hugging my mom and eating her delicious home cooked meals. A year without the Fourth of July spent on the river. A year without my friends and our girl’s nights. A year without 3rd wheeling for my favorite couple(#FinallyGibson). A year without going to concerts and experiencing the greatness that is live music. A year without a phone and being able to keep up with my E! News app. A year without days spent with my grandma, driving her to all of her “errands”. (I’m really going to miss those days.) A year without our annual family schlitterbahn trip. A year without a bed and AC. A year without a room to myself. A year without spending the weekend in Austin with my favorite people. A year without random people showing up to our family holidays. A year without being lazy on a Sunday morning with my sisters and Josh as Parks and Rec play in the background. A year without my best friends Ashley and Zasmyne and our jokes that only we find funny. A year without sitting around a table, beating my family at Nertz. A year without dino nuggets and mac and cheese. A year without Easter with my family and our annual Easter egg hunt and pinata. A year without my brother’s lame jokes and weird texts. A year without movie nights with my mom as we drink our cokes out of straws and eat popcorn with Crunch chocolate bites mixed in. A year without family dinners and hearing everyone’s pit and peaks of the week.
I know a bunch of these things seem really silly to miss but this is my life and I have grown to love it a whole lot.
This is where I am right now. Crying in my bed, thinking of all the things I am going to miss this next year and I am going to be honest, it sucks and it makes me incredibly sad.
You may be thinking, “man, then why is she going? Just back out.”
You’re right, if it hurts this much to leave the things I love then I should quit.
But that would be too easy; quitting because it gets hard or sad. Life is not lived in moments like that. It’s lived in the ones that are the hardest to let go. You’re probably waiting for a point in this blog to where I share something inspiring or something that made me realize not to be so sad but I’m not there yet. And that’s okay.
The thing is, I will be though. Just not right now. Right now, I want to cry over what I am leaving behind and for me that’s okay because for the first time I’m actually processing my emotions about this trip. I am allowing myself to feel the things that hurt in order to keep pushing forward.
And that feels GREAT.
“And in that moment I swear we were infinite.” – Perks of Being A Wallflower
Your World Racer
Andy Ramirez
