Monday, September 7, 2015

Thoughts From the Car

You don't really see movies about people gradually leaving home. It's all about the life leading up to the event that causes the leaving or dealing with life after leaving. And I think I know why. It's extraordinarily unsatisfying to draw out a goodbye.

I said goodbye to my coworkers at the beginning of June. I said goodbye to all my church friends and my other friends over the weeks of unemployment in June and July and then I moved back to my parents' house. And there was a long while in there where it didn't feel like I was leaving at all, where I felt like moving was something that was happening to somebody else, somebody that I would never eventually be. The gap made life messy and boring and agitating, a perfect combination for somebody trying to find her place in the world. 

But this weekend, I think I said a proper North Carolina goodbye. I had good food with friends, I went to hear a folk band play, I drank a lot of craft brews, I had a road trip, and I saw some beautiful things around the state. I listened to the Avett Brothers and drank Cheerwine and flew a kite on Jockey's Ridge, all on the way before going back to my mountains. That weekend was good. It was enough.

So now I'll move on. I've sold my car, I've got packing lists and checklists galore, and in a couple of days I'll be on an airplane to fly across an ocean to stay. Maybe just for year, maybe not, but the revelation I had, watching the waves come in from the East Coast of United States and clouds go by over stars, is that you can worry a whole lot about purpose and goals and living up to your potential, but you never live your life quite so well as you do when you accept that here is where you are. You've chosen the path you've chosen. The past isn't going to change, no matter how many times you retell it, and you'll never know what the future will bring, no matter how many scenarios you can come up with. The most you can do is be here now, with a head full of memories and eyes for the future.

And that's what I intend to do.

Some revelations are important because they happen to you. 

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