On the Eve of the Eve of My Departure

Warning: it's about to get mushy.

Pull out the metaphors, folks. It's a no holds barred scenario- transition time. We need all the wisdom and cliches we can gather to make sense of all that come with any huge transition, and this one is a doozy.

I have been in DC for five years, the longest I've ever been anywhere since childhood after a series of transitory seasonal jobs that defined my 20s. In DC, I've grown magnificent relationships with my colleagues through the blood, sweat, and tears of trying to tame the wild beasts of the middle school classroom. Just as deep were some of those relationships with aforementioned beasts, who taught me more about myself than I would have liked to know if given the choice, but this ultimately led to such profound growth. At home, I was invited into a wild web of friendships and found myself loved from all sides by musicians, artists, writers, DJs, nurses, do-gooder lawyers, environmentalists, and many other world-enhancing folks.

Because of this radiant extended family, I scaled mountains in California, painted myself into an art show, played music on stage, immersed myself in yoga, completed triathlons, and handed off eighth grade poetry to author Rebecca Skloot. I found myself in hysterics watching friends attempt to teach the worm on New Years Eve, crying alongside them when parents passed on, and sitting contently with them in the woods in deep meditation.

I do not try to push down the waves of sadness that overcome me as I hug my coteacher for the last time, as another's children refuse to leave the car because they don't want me to leave, as I sit amongst a going away brunch surrounded by the very chaotic joy I have chosen to forsake.

Instead, I breath it in deeply and feel the sadness push against my chest and pool in my belly. I notice the moment it rises into my throat, then swirls and falls away, giving me access to peace once again. Having the luxury of time during this move has allowed me to observe how emotion moves through me. Because of the time to practice sitting, I think, the waves have been swells that come and pass, rather than roiling tsunamis that crash overhead and bury me in despair. I am not anguished, but gently melancholic.

My gratitude sits solidly in the midst of this, a rock to find solace on as I ride the waves that come from letting go of something so dang good. "How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard," said Winnie the Pooh. I feel that so deeply, on this eve.  How truly lucky I am.

So I leave with all of the emotions, for as I look back, I, too, look forward. I will return to the land on which I was raised- of pine trees, craggy peaks, snowy streets, and salty ocean air. My family will sit an hour or two south and long time friends down the street. There's a two bedroom apartment in the West End of Portland waiting with my name on the lease. My sweetheart is coming with me. Other than that, there are many unknowns yet to be penciled in.

When describing the impending birth of his child, my friend Mark noted, "It's like we're standing at a trailhead and it's really foggy. Everyone keeps describing the steep beautiful mountains behind the fog, and we know they are there, but we can't see them. We are about to go on an epic hike, and we're excited, but we don't really know what it going to be like." As I walk towards the next chapter in my life, I feel similarly.

On the eve of the eve of my departure, what is happening is this: I sit amongst some half filled boxes in an echoing room, reflect back, imagine forward, and land here. I breathe in. I breathe out. A helicopter groans overhead. I yawn. I breathe in. I breathe out. Everything else has gone by or is yet to be, and so I give thanks for this moment too.