The calm....

Its been a long time. I felt I needed to post something before tomorrow, where I'll be blogging all day.
The last few months have been an experience. I got to see what ultimately was my last show at Albion, I spent a far too brief time in Los Angeles visiting with the Southards and Miss Colleen Kelly, had some very stressful weeks and some far less stressful ones, and bought myself new pants. That last one is out of place, I know, but its not something I've done a great deal of, as I hate clothes shopping.

The last few months have also given me time to think. One of my duties at the paper is that I put up the Granite's website, meaning that I enter every photo, caption and story into the system. When I do so it gives me the chance, not surprisingly, to look at pretty much everything in the paper. This includes, and I have a point here, I'm not just doing this to be morbid, the obituaries. One of the things you see a lot in newspapers, including the Granite, is that each obituary has a sub-head, one that gives a few words that might summarize someone's accomplishment or give small snippets of their interests (something like, "World War II veteran", "long time teacher", or even "avid golfer and hunter.") Thankfully, for me, I don't have the job of coming up with said snippet, and of course, when you see something like "avid golfer" you're a bit taken aback, after all, this person might have had children, grandchildren or held an important job, golf probably was .000004% of their life. I sometimes think about what mine would say, or perhaps less morbidly, what it might say in 60 or 70 years. This place is not, ultimately where I want to end up, or stay forever, certainly. Then I think about where I might want to go, and while I know I have a lot of options, its also something I'm anxious about. I'd like to try different areas of the country, especially out west, but I also want to try something familiar, perhaps the Washington area, or somewhere close to home.

I think the reason these feelings are stirring is that its been a year for me here. Honestly, things are in many ways very much the same, and in many ways totally different. I could never have pictured myself as the type of person to go to the gym six days a week, but I have. I never imagined I'd be they type who made it a point to eat vegetables everyday. I'd also never imagined myself getting into some of the issues I've reported on as much. I could go for half an hour on New Durham's school withdrawal or the political situation in Barnstead. That being said, I also feel like there's other things I'd like to experience, and issues I'd like to learn and write about.