Oh, what a difference a year or two makes. I'm wrote this on Friday while on a plane headed back to Chicago after working the week in LA. I have had so many things that are just floating around in my brain so I figured it was time to  break my blogging hiatus. I've had plenty to say during this time but I just haven't had the desire to write blog posts. Approximately two years ago, I was embarking on an adventure to work in LA for six months. Well six months have turned into two years and counting. My initial schedule involved me spending more time in LA than Chicago but since the beginning of the year, I'll only be in LA every other week. At the end of the two years I'm a seasoned road warrior who has gained numerous skills and confidence in my abilities. Right now my project in LA is open ended, but I see the end in sight as they continue to lay off members of my team.

During this time I've experienced numerous milestones, but the ones that stood out the most were the death of my father and falling in love. Both events have shaped many of the decisions that I continue to make now.  My Dad's death was sudden, but not a surprise. He had been suffering with complications of prostate cancer since 2008.  They say there is healing in death, and with my Dad's passing, all the pain he was feeling subsided.  I don't really think the true weight of his death has hit me. I feel as if I'll be overcome with grief on my wedding day when he's not here to walk me down the aisle, but for now I feel happy that he no longer is in pain. I also think that his passing opened some room in my heart for a love that I never had.  

Falling in love was not supposed to be in the cards for me during this project. At the beginning of my tenure in LA I was dating someone but when that fizzled out, I resigned myself to not dating.  In my mind, dating someone new with my crazy travel schedule just didn't make sense. Ironically less than a month after I finally accepted being single, I ran into a friend's brother. We had seen each other in passing before, but he didn't really notice me in the past. When I initially saw him I instantly recognized him as my friend's cute brother and welcomed having eye candy to look at. But like all good eye candy, I figured he would annoy me by talking, but once we started talking, I wanted to talk to him the entire day.  That first day he pretended to not be interested and even claimed that I was too young for him, but we ended up exchanging numbers and started a friendship.  Although I was smitten with him from the start, he told me that he wasn't interested in having a long distance relationship, so we just started talking on the phone daily for hours on end. One day the platonic phone calls turned into more. There have been numerous bumps and roadblocks, but today I'm in a committed relationship. Talk about a surprise in the middle of the story! 

When I first started traveling to LA, I figured that I was sent there for a specific reason.  Two years later and I still don't know the exact reason I'm traveling to LA for work. Hopefully I'll know the answer in another year.