Thoughts From Gate 51B

I am exhausted. It's been a long few months, with very little sleep and even less free mental space. I feel like I've been making lists and thinking, rethinking, rerethinking, about all that needed to be done and packed and moved and stored and sold and purchased and packed and prepared since I stepped off the plane from Nairobi in March.

And now I'm sitting at my gate for the first of three flights, willing myself to stay awake so I don't sleep through boarding. 

I have cried quite a bit in the last few days. In sadness, saying goodbyes to people I love, thinking about the life changes I will be missing from the other side of the world...in joy, thinking about the people I will see at the end of this marathon travel and what's to come in this new season...in grief, as I have mourned the passing of this world I've created and grown to love in Orange County.

I have laughed a ton and danced like mad and eaten more string cheese than anyone ever should. I listened to podcasts about ending well, (which reminded me that this wide-range of emotions I have been feeling is normal) and I sang the words of 'Closing Time' by Semisonic each time I teetered between joy and sadness.

"...Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end..."

Here's to a new beginning...

< Cabin crew prepare for departure > 

I can't wait to sleep all the way home!