Reality Settling In

It has been a quiet week for me in blogland. I have been keeping up on reading what is going on, but have been pretty quiet.

In three days I leave to go back to Detroit. On one hand I am completely ok with this. I am going without fear of falling off the wagon so to speak yet aware of all the potential pitfalls that will come with a huge transition, especially back into the very place I learned my poor eating habits. On the other hand, I am beginning to realize how sad I am to be leaving this place I call home.

Up until yesterday, I have been able to live in blissful denial that when I leave on Sunday, I am not coming back in just a few days as I have with previous visits home. I have been avoiding saying goodbyes. I have actually even avoided seeing some people because I knew it would be that much harder. Believe it or not, I thought it would be easier to just slip out of here, nice and quiet like. Fortunately and unfortunately, I have some good friends who will not allow such a thing to happen and now a shindig has been planned, however the word good bye will not be allowed! While this will no doubt be a grand time of being with my people, those who have been my family here on the West Coast, it just makes everything that much more real. So today was quite a somber day as I really let it sink in exactly who and what I will miss.

While at the gym tonight with Adam and Aaron, I was painfully aware that I have 2 more days of workouts in this place. As I looked around the gym, seeing the treadmills, I began to think (and don't tell anyone, but I even teared up a bit) about how last September I was walking for 30 minutes at 2.5 or 2.8 and I was done. Then I realized, I just finished run/walking a mile after a 45 minute spin class which was preceded by another mile! David D. Hunting (the gym) has been good for me and good to me. It is incredibly significant that I can now easily spend 2 hours in this place. That I now run. I spin. I do aerobics classes and Pilate's. I have lost 38 LBS in this place. I will miss it. But more than just the gym, I will miss the familiarity I have in this place. The faces, while I don't know their names, their faces just fit in my head when I think of the gym.

I will miss the muscle head with the blond spiky hair who seems to be there whenever I am, no matter if it is morning or night workouts.

I will miss seeing the short balding old guy who also seems to be there whenever I am. Do these people live at the gym?

Spin instructors, Jeff and Emily. and Lorenzo from 6:30 Monday night class, who seems to think it is completely normal for a 300+ lb person to be in spin class. (I think so now too, but not at first)

I will miss Coach scaring the living daylights out of me whenever he and I happen to be at the gym at the same time. ( I cannot believe I am putting that in black and white!)

I cannot list all the people and things I will miss. But you get the idea. There is much to be missed here. Familiar places and faces those who don't know me and those who know me oh so well.

On the upside (is this denial or deflection creeping back in?) I get to go and try and re-create this in a new place! Reality is back. While the nameless familiar faces in the gym can be replaced with new nameless familiar faces, it is the familiar and known faces that can never be replaced, just added to.