I can be a bit of a procrastinator sometimes.

Let me revise that statement to improve its accuracy.

I can be a lot of a procrastinator all of the time.

I’ve been putting off writing this post since I moved to Louisville because I find other things to keep me busy or excuses because I was “too busy.” And at the same time, what motivated me to write this right now was specifically because I’m putting off doing my contracts reading for class tomorrow. I’ll get it done later I promise.

Something that I’ve been thinking about all summer is the concept of moving on, or onward. Starting over in a new state across the country and beginning graduate school for my degree feels like a good time to talking about it/writing about it. Specifically, what does it mean to move onward with your life?

Moving physically to a new location is one way. From a physical distance standpoint, I now live 2,500 miles from my parents and most of my undergraduate friends. I can’t hop in my truck and drive down the road (or I-5) to go and see them. I do already miss the constant bs that the White House and Fiji had to offer. There was always some way to forget about your problems by involving yourself in whatever shenanigans those century-old houses had to offer. The people here are different. But everyone I’ve met in law school has been respectful, professional, and motivated. From an environmental standpoint, I’ve moved on to something different and am focusing on something different.

But I have a firm belief that moving onward to something else isn’t a clean break or easy. There’s no set point that some things end; rather, it slowly fades from memory and life slowly takes other things and people in different directions. One example that I have of this is something that happened yesterday. A former teammate and I were close a long time ago now during our year together. After we retired, we stayed in touch periodically and sent each other stupid jokes and stuff. But as time went on, the responses became more infrequent and now in the last nine months, I’ve gotten continuously left on read. It’s really hurt and upset me, to be quite honest. I thought about it for a while if I did anything wrong and whether I should reach out or not, but it’s clear they’re not interested to talk about it. And in my mind, it isn’t worth the potential conflict to try to ask why and take steps to figure it all out. Life is taking them on a different direction and there isn’t a desire to reconnect. That can sting, for sure, but sometimes there isn’t a desire for a connection to continue. The events we share together can live on in memory but they stay in the past. And that’s tough to accept sometimes, for sure, but it’s okay that it happens. I like to think of life as a very long trail that’s always winding and exploring new places. There are times when we share that trail with others whose paths are right next to ours for a while. But most of the time, that path forks and you’re sent on different routes. And sometimes those paths can lead us out of calling range with each other. That’s just how life goes. We should continue to acknowledge the past and just move onward to the next sight to see. There wasn’t a set moment that we got out of range, but the signal grew weaker and weaker over time.

Moving onward in life is something that happens one day at a time. There are days we make it to the top of a mountain and there are others when we’re just trudging through the valley in bad weather. We can stop for a moment and look behind us to previous adventures and search around to see where the paths in life took the others you shared it with. Some of those people might not want to take a call right now, but others will want to stay in contact with you if you both make the effort to do so.

-Colby