Me voy

I don't really have much to say, just had an urge to type. It's surprising and also not so much so that I have little to say, as the past two weeks have been a whirlwind of craziness. My brain is still in the midst of such a whirlwind: I leave my house in Goshen for good on Tuesday. Already one of our dear housemates has departed onto her own adventures in AK. I attended two weddings of very good college friends in as many weekends. Just today, I spent my last Sunday at yet another home in Goshen: Assembly Mennonite. And here I am, again typing in the GC computer lab (no more internets at The Spain), which makes me feel like a college student frantically typing up a last minute assignment.

Leaving is weird. Earlier in the summer, I considered making a list of all the places and things I'd want to do just "one last time" before moving. I'm glad I didn't make such a list because I surely wouldn't be able to complete it. I've made a multitude of lists these past few days: lists of things to pack, lists of items I need to find a home for, lists of people to call, lists of moving details to take care of. None of them are finished. And most of them will remain just slightly unfinished. Then there are the lists I have kept in my head, full of items that I should have done but didn't: kept in better touch with some of my profs, had one last quality catch up conversation with Alana before she left, quit work at the co-op earlier, etc.

As I walked down the hallway in our apartment this afternoon, still talking to Kimberly in her bedroom, the hallway echoed. It never used to echo, you see, because there were posters and beautiful fabric hanging up that buffered the sound. It's the little things like a newly echoey space or the wall decorations coming down that totally shock me into realizing that life as I currently know it is over. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't trade these intense, sometimes difficult, always rewarding and beautiful living experiences with people I love dearly for anything, but the sad truth is that it becomes very painful to leave when it is time.

It's time, though. Boxes are being packed. Plans are being made for new places. I will no longer laugh with my co-op coworkers or sing the tree song and drink coffee at Assembly. I won't read at the Brew or eat at County Seat or visit with friends at the farmer's market while buying produce. I don't know what I'll be doing, really, nor what any of The Spain will be doing. But, as my father would say, "The time has come, the walrus said, to speak of many things." So off I will go, (hopefully completely) packed up by Tuesday, filling one car with the combined possessions of James and myself, to a new adventure.

Did I mention that leaving makes me melancholy?