Harder Than I Ever Imagined

Wow – this move and reaching my goal is harder than I EVER imagined it would be. I had really underestimated how difficult it would be. Through it all, I have loved and lived every moment of this past year. It has been incredible.

I am so thankful for this experience, but PHEW, it has been hard. I’ve had my share of tears and triumphs.I have made wonderful new friends here in North Carolina and had wonderful experiences. I am so happy to have moved. But damn, this is hard.

I’ve missed my friends in Colorado more than I could have ever imagined. Let me say that again, I miss my friends. I thought that since I’m so integrated into social media that I’d be able to keep that sense of connectedness. It isn’t the same. Life gets in the way. Time differences change waking hours.  I miss getting drinks, listening to other people’s problems and venting my own.

I miss the familiar places and foods of Colorado. I watched the Colorado Girls spoof on the California Girls video and wiped away tears. I lived in Colorado for 25 years. It was home.

Now, North Carolina is home. I am very thankful to be here and I naively thought that the difficulties would end once we moved. Wow, I was wrong. New streets to navigate, new places to eat, new cultural norms to accept, new terrible drivers to accept.

I have lived every day that I’ve been here. We pack every weekend full with events or beach trips or get together with friends. We’ve gone out on “school” nights and I’ve put in long hours at work. I go to sleep everyday knowing that I’m getting the most out of this experience.

When working towards a goal letting yourself acknowledge how hard it is to achieve is also important in reaching a goal. The down slope of reaching a big goal and the maintenance that follows is a challenge in itself. For a long time you have been working towards one single goal. Once you’ve achieved it, now what? What is the next mountain to climb?

My next mountain is to just “be.” For a long time I’ve been pushing to personal and professional goals. I need to figure out how to just be good at my job, good at my life, good at being a friend, good at being a wife.

I am working in the weeks to come to download lots of great tips to this blog – back logging the dates so I have 52 weeks of tips for “Living a Networked Life.” Living a Networked Life is a phrase I’ve come up with to describe how I live my life. I am constantly making connections online and offline to build a web of support for myself and for the people in my network. I am always buzzing around putting together the pieces of my puzzle.

Now the network I’m building is my life network. New friends and creating a support group in our new home. My work is to be in the present and find joy in being me.

Have you ever achieved a huge goal? How did you deal with the maintenance phase? Did you just mount another goal? I’d love to hear your advice!

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