i've been away for a while. i promise i have a good reason ... it's sitting on my desk bound and beautiful ... all 74 pages of it.

last night should have been one of the happier days of my life ...

and it was a disaster.

as i turned in my thesis for my masters program and stepped up to the front of the room to give a short presentation on the journey i have taken in the past year and a half, i became very aware of how lonely i've been.

as everyone was giving their speeches about their leadership journey, i felt a huge disconnect. i'm not saying i didn't appreciate their stories ... that's not it at all. i just couldn't really relate. being a good 10 years behind most people in my class plays a large role in that and when i stepped up to the front of the room ... i felt ...

exposed.

as i attempted to articulate my personal philosophy of leadership and my core values i looked around the room and realized that i was not connecting. this typically doesn't bother me ... but it threw me off last night and i walked away feeling as if i didn't do myself or my work justice.

one of my colleagues, who spoke after me, quoted greenleaf by saying, "able leaders are usually sharply awake and reasonably disturbed." she paused and said, "this one reminds me of you krysta."

i wanted to take it as a compliment. but as i drove home last night, all i could think about was how this "disturbia" was defining me. all i could think about was how busy i am doing things that i enjoy, but that don't make me a joyful person. why is it that i appear to have so many friends, but when it really comes down to it, i'm just involved in a lot of things so there is an allusion that i'm always surrounded by people who want to spend time with me?

again, this should be an exciting week for me. i should be celebrating the end of a tiresome journey that we call graduate school. but somehow, somewhere along the way ... probably years ago ... i became the person that "get's things done" instead of the person people want to hang out with.

so i stood there last night wondering if this was going to be it for me. if this is what my life was going to look like. i don't know if it's because i'm passionate about things that people just don't want to commit to, or if i'm just not someone people want to be led by, but as people were talking about leadership as if it were a bowl of ice cream ... all i could think was that it is one of the loneliest places to be.

so today i battle the desire for meaningful relationships and girl's nights and dinners with a giant group of friends with my desire to see the world changed for good. and i can't help but think how difficult it would be for me to have both. so while some of you think that it's all about a balance, i would love to agree. in fact, i envy you for having it. but i ... i think i'll always be disturbed and that doesn't tend to mix well social settings and that's really not making my day super cheery.

hopefully tomorrow i'll come to grips with my reality and keep moving forward. until then, i'll be spending the day with my office door shut and tissues at my desk and possibly dabbling in a small amount of self pity. :)