You better hang on tooth and nail.

Summer slipped away. I know that everyone says that every year, but this is the slipperiest summer yet for me. I had my internship kickoff on Thursday and then my first day of work on Friday and now I am having my first weekend of Fall semester. I cannot imagine a day when I do not measure my life by semesters, but I know it is coming. This semester will be different from others. I live in Greensboro now. I am working 32 hours a week this semester, and I only have 3 hours of class a week. Whatttt??

Summer slipped away. Maybe it feels extra slippery, because it feels like other things are slipping away right now too. College. Raleigh things. Childhood. Familiar. Routine. Comfort. Those things are all slipping away, but there are also things like this: beautiful people, joy, encouragement, and truth. I feel them all slipping away as well. I have those things here, too, but they're in different places, different people.

It's the people. It's always the people, isn't it? The people in my life have and are changing. The actual people are different when you move from one city to another, but I think what scares me the most, what makes me the most sad are the little changes, the growth, the continual rebirth and evolution I won't be as much a part of in the people I left. The actual people changed, but the people are actually changing as well. Everyday changing. I am happy. I am excited. I am eager to find my place here, to be a part of those new people changing here, but another part of me is sad. A little homesick for my favorites and the ways they are growing, changing, becoming more like how they are intended to be. I will miss being a part of that every day kind of change.

Well, once again here I am standing in front of my friend, Change, and equally loving and hating him. Change is a boy, because boys are stupid, but you still love them. I've never wanted and not wanted something, lots of things actually, like I do right now. I want to be able to dive in, but that's not all I want. I also want to drag my feet a little bit. To have more time. But I think we have established that the time is slipping away. My in between time is just about gone, and I am ready to work. I am ready to learn the ins and outs of CWS, of GSO, of everything about this new life, but I am not quite ready to let go of things, people, places, that I count on, that give me life and fuel to move forward. I know that they're not disappearing, only changing. But sometimes changing feels like shifting, and sometimes shifting feels like slipping and sometimes slipping just feels scary. Like I don't have a whole lot of control, like I can't hold on, or like I can't control the way that I hold on.

Lately, I have been thinking about my life in terms of skiing. Bare with me. Skiing is my sport. It is just about the only athletic thing that I love and can do well. I really can't take credit for it. LK had me out there early. When I was old enough to walk, I was old enough to ski. We used to have a little condo at Wintergreen and I conquered Eagle's Swoop and its icy terrain as a small ski bunny in my black and white polka dotted, puffy jacket. I have a lot of good childhood memories in the mountains.

When you learn to ski, if you have a good teacher, you start off without poles. All you have and all you need to worry about are the two panels attached to the two boots on your feet. And one of the first things you've got to get down is the "pizza" maneuver.

Pizza-ing is not the end goal, but you have to walk before you can run. People say that, right? Some call it the pie or the pizza pie. I have always fondly referred to this basic move simply as, "the pizza." It's where you angle the tips of your skis together so that they look like a little slice of pizza.

The pizza allows you to maintain control. The pizza helps you slow down and stop, even turn a little. The pizza is important for beginners, because while skis can feel really foreign and awkward, if you can get a hold of your pizza pose, you can have control, even if it's just enough control to stop yourself and get outta those skis. You have control to rearrange and reevaluate. And you have a foundation on which you can keep improving.

Moving up in the world, we want to get our skis side by side,  not angled inward. We want to get to poles and parallel turns. We want to add some speed in there somewhere. We want to keep building and getting better. But we always have our pizza to fall back on.

That is how I have been feeling the past week. I feel like I have been in pizza mode. I am just trying to survive. I am just trying to get down the mountain, or this part of the mountain without killing myself. And it's good. I can get down anything with my pizza, so I am glad that I have it, but it doesn't look especially good, and I don't especially enjoy it. It's hard to appreciate the view, the scenery when all you can do is focus whole heartedly on pizza-ing down the mountain.

Transitions are the worst. I know in a few weeks I will have this down. I will be making parallel turns like it's my job and will have no need for the pizza, but I'm not there yet. Things are slipping away and I am trying to hold onto them while simultaneously attempting to get a grasp on all of these new things that are all starting. I am learning my new job and the way the organization works and how I can best be used there. I am learning how to have normal, non summer life in Greensboro; I haven't done that in a lot of years. I am learning how to be a good friend to my friends here and I am learning how to be a good friend to the people I left in Rals and the ones that left me. I am learning lots of things, and I am unsure of how I feel about it all. I know I am happy and I know I am sad, but I don't know how those two contradictory feelings can exist so strongly alongside of each other.

I am pizza-ing. I am just trying to make it through days one at a time. I am trying to learn and adjust and I am trying to have a good attitude about it all, but that's hard and I don't always do it well. I am excited for the day when that is not the case anymore, when I can appreciate the days instead of just trying to get through them. Maybe that's not the best way to look at things, but it's the best I can do right now, and I think that's okay. I think it's okay that life feels heavy right now. I think it's okay that change still stresses me out like you wouldn't believe, and I think it's okay that I am relying on my pizza a whole, whole lot.

Honestly, I love it here. Honestly, I loved it there. Honestly, I am excited and eager to keep moving forward. Honestly, I never want to let go of the beautiful things of the past. Honestly, those are all truths.

I hope I never forget how incredibly precious it is that I have so much to look forward to and so much to miss. I hope I never forget to be thankful for that, even in the midst of all the pizza.