Not unlike my previous post, I’m beginning this while sitting in an airport. In contrast, I might actually get to finish this post before I get on the airplane, since I still have another three hours until my flight. I’m hanging out in the Lounge this time, because I have access and I wanted a beer and something to eat. I’m relaxing, listening to the soundtrack from Shrek 2 (hence the title of this post) and writing.

How was my trip? Well, it wasn’t exactly a vacation. I was packing. I’ve moved, which I know I’ve talked about before, but I haven’t moved most of my stuff or any of my furniture. I’ve been living in a room at the top of the stairs. I have a surprising amount of stuff too, which I didn’t realize. Books, costumes, movies, travel souvenirs, stuffed animals, never mind clothes and shoes and actual things I use on a regular basis. It was actually a really hard weekend/week for me which I really didn’t anticipate. Just the act of packing, deciding what to donate, what I wanted to bring back with me right away and what could wait. It was putting my whole life under a microscope for assessment and deciding what “things” were the most important.

It also snowed…in September… I brought running gear but was not prepped for two snowstorms. So I didn’t get in any running on the trip either. I had a seizure, but fortunately (as fortunate as a seizure can be) it was in my sleep, in bed. So no injuries there. I got to see a few friends and that was really fantastic. I just don’t know when the next time I will be back is. My stuff is packed and ready to be shipped.

I’ve moved before. I moved from Edmonton to Calgary almost 13 years ago. In Calgary I’ve lived in at least half a dozen places. It’s not like a move should be such a big deal to me. I’m moving within the same country, and to a city that I am relatively familiar with. I have been living there for a few months already. This really shouldn’t be such a big deal for me. I know someone who is moving to an entire different continent and I cannot even imagine what that must feel like. Excitement? Apprehension? Unbridled terror? I have all of those for my little move.

Packing all my stuff might just be bringing into sharp relief the decisions I’ve made in the last couple years. I left my foundations and the things I knew. I left to focus on my health and happiness. At first, that meant packing my running gear and some books and staying with family members. I could run, I could volunteer, I could realign. Now, I’m going to be starting a new career. Now, I may be getting my own apartment. Now, that means packing all my Pop! Collectibles, my artwork, and sorting through which races and concert shirts I want to keep. I found the first T-shirt from the first race I did. It was a 5k in Calgary in 2013. I found a stuffed animal that I’ve had since I was a baby. I cried a lot the last few days.

Changes are so many things. It can be the end of a relationship that leads to something more positive (and that something positive doesn’t have to be a new relationship, it can also be realizing your own value independently). It can be the start of a brand new job that is going to be challenging and is going to make it finally clear where you’ve been meant to be. It can be a new apartment or a house. It can be a new language. It can be redecorating rooms to suit the person that you are now instead of the person you used to be.

Changes are all the things for the future that we don’t know yet. I’m about to start a new career, and it will be different but I am so very excited about it. I’m planning to finish the two races I’m registered for this year and then start looking at ultras and some more travel races for 2020. I may even learn how to cook (albeit unlikely but I suppose nothing is impossible).

And yes, changes can be massively negative things. I am completely choosing to ignore those examples for this post.

Time for me to head down to the gate for my flight. Time for me to head down to my flight home. To my home.

(And I definitely have that stuffed animal from when I was a baby in my carry-on. I wasn’t going to trust him to the damage that happens to checked luggage!)