Hanging up the keys

It has now been almost four full months since I left Augusta, but it feels like so much longer with the nonstop traveling that I have done. Six weeks driving across the country and another 10 weeks visiting friends and family on the east coast using my parents house as a base. Its like the old saying:

"Round and round she goes, where she stops, nobody knows..." 

Well now it seems I've stopped and I'm not at all where I thought I would be.

While I was on my road trip, I only had one rule and that was to be back in Pennsylvania in time to go to my sisters college graduation in Georgia... Until I found out that the annual Sertoma's Chicken Barbecue was the week before, then I tried to make it back in time for that (not really, lucky coincidence)... 

Anyways, as I was driving back across the country I got a call from my sister. Like any soon-to-be college graduate she had been really stressed about finding a job and I had received many calls about it on my trip. Both of us were not too keen on moving back in with the parents and she was even less keen on moving to a new place by herself. So I made a deal: I told her that if she gets a job in a place where she didn't know anyone then I would move with her. Simple right, I mean I had nothing else planned for my life, and I kinda thought that if she hadn't gotten a job at that point she probably wouldn't for a while. Which meant that I could still have the entire summer in Pennsylvania. This call was different though, this was the good news call. This was the call where she said that she got a job, at a really good firm, in Charlotte, NC. Well, there went my summer. But I had made a commitment, and after verifying that she really did want me as a room-mate, I agreed to stick with my commitment.

I tried to cram my summer plans and finding an apartment into the small amount of time I now had. Which explains the nonstop chaos of the last ten weeks. My sister decided to move and start her new job the beginning of July. I took all my belongs then too, but decided to give myself more time because of a few other preplanned activities. But it still didn't seem like enough time. And I want to say to all my friends in Pennsylvania whom I told that I was moving back to PA, I'm sorry and I miss you. If you want to travel my door is always open. To all my friends in Georgia, I'm not that far away. I miss you too. Lets plan something.

Now here I am in North Carolina. I promised my sister I would stay for a year, one lease cycle. I'm ready for a break, ready to enter back into the work force, and ready to find "normality". And even ready to hang up the keys for a while. Lord knows my car needs a break even more than I do. It won't be a full break though. The outdoors still call to me. There are still so many places I haven't been. While I'm living in Charlotte, I will take weekend trip to close by places like Great Smoky Mountain National Park or Shenandoah National Park. After a year I don't know where I'm going to go. But of course I will keep blogging.