Closing Ceremonies

The end of an era. It’s been a difficult six months in terms of transitions. Today was not what I expected. I think that no matter how well you try and prepare for a difficult transition, there’s no way to really predict how it will turn out.

I woke up mad early (for me). I got to Anna’s by 6:20am and we headed out to run. Most of the run was silent. We just sort of zoned out. I couldn’t keep my mind from wandering, from thinking about the events of the next few hours. Every once in a while, my eyes would begin to sting and then I’d just try and focus on the run again.

We had an awkward breakfast with her family and tried to get some time to talk alone. There were only a few tears. We went outside to finish packing up her car and I gave her a letter and my Berklee sweat shirt. It was pretty hard. The actual goodbye wasn’t quite as bad. It was so sudden that neither of us really had time to get upset.

The drive home was probably the hardest part of the day. In all honesty, I probably should have pulled over and cooled off a bit, but oh well, I made it home safe. I spent a few hours reading through the journal that she gave me and then got out of my room and started to think about the rest of the day.

My parents wanted me to head into town to run some errands, so as I was driving I gave Duncan a call to see what he was up to. He said nothing, so I drove to his house. We hit up Cumbie’s and then walked around the CA campus for a while, trying to see if there was anyone there or anything open. Alas, there was not, so we just got my Dad’s mail and headed back to my house. We chilled there and had some lunch with my parents before heading off to his Dad’s house.

We spent most of the afternoon playing rock band and relaxing. It was good to just chill and get distracted. I was actually in a surprisingly good mood most of the afternoon. My parents were a little bitchy when they were trying to figure out evening plans, but no big deal. I dropped Duncan off and headed home for some dinner.

The evening has been pretty relaxed. My parents went out for a bit after dinner and I decided to go for a brief run. I’ve been finding that over the past few days, my emotions have been determining my runs more than my brain. I’m not too upset with this because I’ve had a few pretty quick runs in the past few days, but I feel like it could be a dangerous habit to get into. I don’t want to HAVE to run a fast pace just because I’m upset. I want to be able to run fast when it’s good for my training, not when it’s good for my emotions.

Nonetheless, emotions or not, I felt pretty quick today. After running a 30 second 5k PR yesterday, I went out today with no warmup and ran a 4:39 mile. Not too shabby if I do say so m’self.

And now, here I am: watching the closing ceremonies of the 2008 Olympics. I may not have been there, but I’ve had my own Olympic tasks over the past year to have to complete, vanquish, overcome. And so, these closing ceremonies come at a coincidental time. As I watch the spectacular event that is the closing of the Olympics, I think back to this morning and think about the awkward rushed goodbye. I’ve watched two entirely opposite closing ceremonies today.

Naturally, I’m drained.