My heart is full...

I've been trying to write this post for a few days now, and I don't really know how to without being a total rambling mess combined with large doses of philosophical introspection that I'm not sure will make a lot of sense, but I will blather on anyway if I can get the words together.

For my vacation I decided to go back East to my graduation from graduate school and then stay for a week to see friends. I somehow felt that I needed to be hooded, mainly because I was more afraid that 50 years down the line I would regret missing the opportunity. So I used it as an excuse to see my friends who I dearly missed.

Graduation was filled with the necessary insane fiascoes that only my dept is capable of...but amazingly a few people stepped up to the plate and became some unlikely heroes in my book. It was refreshing to see that people are capable of unexpected behavior in a good way, even if they have proved to be difficult to deal with otherwise. My sister came out for my graduation so it was great to share this with her and then show her around western MA and boston over the weekend.

Being the SUPER planner in my 'everyday' life...my vacation planning took the opposite...none. Or very little. So sadly I just walked my sister around Boston and gave her my own 'walking tour' of the town rather than actually making a real tour, because I messed up times of tours and we were just slow to get anywhere...but we had a great time and she really enjoyed being in MA for the weekend. I played 'tour guide' for her for Boston a city I know very little about since I spent 5 years not in this area, but somehow it worked out and she had a great time.

During my planning of this trip, Claire suggested a meet up. I somehow convinced Angry to join our dinner fun too. Aside from randomly meeting Paul at a workout out here in SD, bloggers that I know in real life I had met in my pre-blog days. This was my first "meet other bloggers convention" where there was an actual event...that was planned...where we had to make actual conversation for a set period of time. Err...for an introvert like me, I had no idea how this would fare. I mean...what would we talk about? Sure we have similar interests...but I quickly found out that people who read your blog...well they know all your stories...so then you have to come up with other topics. In the end the meet up was fun...no weirdly awkward silences (which is death to me). I didn't display my uncontrollable hysterical laughter, which I think Claire was disappointed by, but people have to be really lucky to witness that, maybe next time.

After two days in Boston I headed back to western MA for most of the week. It was a great time of seeing friends and catching up. I had the opportunity to help a good friend of mine move to her new diggs as she just defended and is starting her job soon. Helping her move was soooo awesome in the timing of the move because we had shared so much throughout grad school as we had started in the same class together and struggled through gradschool's twists and turns. Also while I was out in MA, one of my previous housemates , a good friend of mine, got engaged while I was out there. This was just an awesome time to share with her. I never would have dreamed that I would get to BE there after it happened and share in her excitement. Over the course of the week I got to spend time with many different friends, laughing so hard I cried at times.

I got to spend my last day and a half with Joe and J...who's friendships have been so easy. Very rarely do I come across people where they slip into my life and it feels like they have been there the whole time. In my life they have skipped the sometimes long time requirement that other friendships take to become the 'comfortable' friends and more have expected the friendship to be comfortable...like old friends.

My trip back East reminded me how blessed I am by the people in my life. And while I miss them all dearly, I also gained new insights into my need to start cultivating new areas in my life out in S.Cali...so it was good...it was so, so good. I really can't coherently express really how great the week was, but my heart is very full...