Shedding my skin

There has been a long, long pause in this blog. In fact, I've probably skipped parts of this process I wanted to chronicle the most. Adapting to life in a new city, in the strange land of Nuevo Mexico. In many ways I was fighting the power of this place, and I've got to say, no matter how strong you think you are, sometimes you just have to let the desert win.
Christmastime was wonderful. So many memories of New Mexico Christmas things, wrapped up in nostalgia of my grandparents (my grandmother's middle name is Noel, her birthday is Dec. 24, and that day is also her wedding anniversary). Posole, luminarias, mass en espanol in Old Towne. La Fonda and The Shed in Santa Fe. It was a lot of fun to share it all with my mom.
After a month in town, and a month with mom, then Stephanie and Bradford came for New Years. We had a picture perfect NYE wine tasting in the valley, discovering the Marble Brewery!!!! and soothing our hangovers by the fire at the Flying Star on Rio Grande.



Then my friends went home and work got started. January was all solitary business. Training for the Austin Half, swimming at the Valley Pool, crochet, fires in the fireplace and football.
In February I returned to Austin on Valentine's day. It still felt like I had left my heart in Texas. Brisket, margaritas and good friends. I had a great race and was looking forward to returning a month later for SXSW.
Work intensified, greatly. I spent long hours at my desk. Then workouts, then home, bed, repeat. My light at the end of the tunnel was traveling back to Austin. Living in the past. As times got tougher in Albuquerque I was clinging to my old life "back home" more tightly, all the while loosing sight of the amazing to possibilities that were unfolding in Albuquerque all around me.
The problem with SXSW is that it brings spring fever early. Barely St. Patrick's day (a holiday I was respectfully able to celebrate 2x in both cities) and you are already in full-on summertime mode.
I returned from SXSW in full on party mode ,at the end of March after a fun day with the hash in the Ojito Wilderness I flipped my car driving to fast on a sketchy dirt road. We rolled several times. The car was totaled, but somehow (I swear it was Yoda) we all (Dixie too) emerged safely. My confidence was shaken, I was black and blue and sad and sore and lonely. I know it's shallow to be sad about a material possession, but I had had the Cherokee since college. I've been a lot of great places and done a lot of things. For a good while after Buttercup was gone, it was the only place I could still feel her presence near me (and smell her skank ass too!)
As I recovered mentally and physically from the wreck (the only one I've ever been in). I could feel myself growing and changing and shedding my Austin skin. I had been planted in Albuquerque in the cold gray winter, but the windy spring was here and my tiny seedling head was poking through the soil to see the sun.