This part of the journey ends for me

I finally made it back to good ol' Charlotte. 48hours of travel, 2 red-eye flights, 8 cups of crappy coffee, 4 beers, and 6 hours of sleep later I am greeted at the airport by Jon Tumas and Jon Evans. It was so good to see familiar faces. After some needed sleep catch up, I've had some time to process the events of the trip and have had the strange opportunity to have a moment of clarity. There are so many things that I miss about being in another country, especially NZ. Most of all, though, is the people. The states are filled with people that are not trustworthy. These people are categorized into 3 groups. Those that steal, those that lie, and those that lie to make themselves feel better about themselves. I know that everyone fits into one of these categories at one point or another, but my focus here is the ones that live in any one of those categories. I guess I just need this post to vent about that inconsistency. I've always known that there are people in this world that are liars. And I've always known that those people have the biggest insecurity of all. Why is it that people will tell lies that are clearly not true, or have so little truth to them they are not even checked? I used to be a professional cross country racer in Europe. I have 6 sponsors that payed for my travel and my food while I was there. I raced for a company that does not sponsor riders from the US. That company actually is not distributed in the US. I'm not from Europe and would have no way of getting a sponsorship like that. I am a complete tool. There is no need for any of this monotony. I can't understand why people can't just be themselves. It was my parents that taught me to not give (too much of) a shit what people thought of me. They did this whether they were conscience of it or not. So thanks Mom and Dad for making sure that I'm not too much of a douche. I owe you my life for it, and I believe that I will be rewarded for it in the end. I'm 26 years old now and I want that reward. I've sat in front of so many people that are "Me Monsters" and I want my cake so that I can eat it too. I want to be seen for what I am. I see myself as a good person that tells my stories how they happened, I'm not fake, I don't dye my hair, I don't wear make-up, I don't have any tattoos with lame stories, I don't even have any tattoos at all! I don't make up features of my life that never existed, I don't have anything to hide.  If there is one thing that I wish would go away is those "Me Monsters". I only spent a month in NZ, and I only met hundreds of people. What is strange to me is that of those hundreds of people, none of them fed me a load of BS. I'm friends with Paul Turner, here are the pictures. I own a bike shop, here is the key. I race for Niner, here is my bike. I am married, here is my husband. I won SSWC10, here is my tattoo. If you read this, it will most likely be my last post on here and I must thank you for sticking with us. We're not writers, but my philosophy is that there is no point in having/doing anything cool unless you can share it with someone else. So I've done my best to share this experience because I thought it was super cool. I'd love some feedback on this one to ensure that I'm not crazy or missing the point of life. If I'm the one that is out of line I need to know so that I can realign myself. The next step for me is to start planning a trip to Ireland for SSWC11!