coming full circle...

This time last year I was heading to Glacier National Park with some of my closest friends. I was excited, of course, to see a new place and have a new experience, but I had no idea just how inspiring and magical the trip would be. While I was there, I hiked through amazingly gorgeous terrifyingly difficult awe-inspiring landscape. I walked in sun, rain, snow, horse poop, and bear scat. I did yoga on top of rocky mountain passes and next to ancient glaciers and shockingly blue/green glacial lakes, and stared in awe at grizzly and black bears, mountain goats, longhorn sheep, and a whole plethora of other little critters. I turned 26. I felt the magic of the big sky over my head, turning cotton candy pinkpurpleblue during sunrise, and saw the stars shining down on me in the nighttime during bundled up porch chats with my friends. Something shifted for me then, and I decided that 26 was going to be a transformational year, or less decided and more realized. This was out of my hands, but then I knew it and stopped trying to control what would or should happen.

 When I got back to Atlanta I started to think about what would make me happy and help me grow as a person. I started planning a summer in Europe, and completed my yoga teacher training. I quit my job as a nanny and focus on my career as a dancer and yoga teacher. I performed in an amazing show with staibdance "attic" and got to work with Flux Projects and T. Lang and Nick Cave at Ponce City Market. I then somehow planned a year that included little time in Atlanta because I had the wanderlust bad. Then I met the man of my dreams and wanted nothing more than to spend all of the time with him IN ATLANTA! All of a sudden my gypsy plans and dreams turned into fear of messing up this good thing I had going. Luckily he was super supportive of me chasing dreams and traveling. We somehow survived the summer apart with lots of broken phone calls and postcards, then I settled my gypsy ass down into a house with him when I got home. But, now I am taking off again, luckily only for a short time, and it is brining me full circle. I am heading back to Montana tomorrow, almost exactly one year later, and I cannot wait to see what this adventure brings. I know that as I spend my 27th birthday in Glacier surrounded by friends and teaching yoga, frolicking and dreaming and missing my sweetie back home, I will reminisce about last years adventure that started all of this. Onward and upward.