Change of scenery

I'm writing this from my hotel room (which is about the size of a closet with a bathroom attached) in Atlanta. I'm waiting for my phone to charge before heading out for a late dinner. While I'm waiting, I'm listening to the game on the iPad (no "real" TV channels in the room) and drying out my t-shirt (yes, a 15 minute hike from the train to the hotel probably cost me two pounds in total weight). More importantly, I "get it", and the last two weeks finally make sense.

I can honestly say that I haven't needed a change of scenery more urgently than I needed one this week. Stepping on the train to the hotel inside the Atlanta airport, I did something I hadn't done in almost three weeks.

I smiled.

It was a nice, necessary reminder of why I made the decision I made back in June. One of the hardest things for me since I left work on July Sixth was to "begin to move on" and remember why I left dear friends and a very well paying job. Whatever reason I arrived at over the last two weeks seemed to no longer warrant such a cataclysmic change. But then I went back to Atlanta.

Maybe Thursday morning, when I'm back in Richmond and I instinctively wake up for a moment right when my alarm used to sound, I'll feel the pang that I should be getting up and getting ready for work, but the brief time spent here in this nondescript hotel room has shown me that those pangs will subside once I have an Atlanta zip code.

I can't tell how relieved I am to realize that.

Thanks for reading. Now I'm off to the Landmark Diner for pancakes! (Wednesday I'll write another blog about why I'm in Atlanta this week (when the Braves are in Miami). It's a trip that's been 17 years in the making!)

Barry
07.23.12