... and i'm (not quite) ready to go
Today I started packing.
A little anal I know as the move is 10 weeks away. But the elves that Santa is lending me to help me move are leaving in approximately 3 weeks and seeing as how I don't know how much stuff is moving with me I thought I should make full use of the said elves.
and as I thought of packing, suddenly the magnitude of what I am doing HIT me.
I do not know how to pack for this move. i lived away for almost a decade and never had a problem. some moves were more bitter than others. leaving England was painful to say the very least. but none before this one has had quite this much finality. it is a somewhat edifying thought that mum and dad are not turning my room into a home gym, that they're not taking down the photographs and boxing away the trophies. that they will keep this room mine. that there will always be room here for me.
but it doesn't change the fact that below the surface, this move is a resounding close to life as i know it. i don't mourn it's passing. i am excited beyond measure for the start of the new chapter and i know from the very core of me that i have chosen the right man to keep me company on this journey. but i mourn all that i leave behind. or more accurately, who i leave behind.
i am rubbish at goodbyes. i don't know how to to them without a stuffed up nose, red eyes and a tear stained face. and this will be one giant goodbye won't it?
yes yes i know that it's only two hours flight away, and the internet is great and all that malarkey, but really, let's not ease the blow. i am leaving everything that has been a constant in this nomadic life of mine. and it was that constant that made it a little bit easier. it's like that bit from my favourite Donne poem
If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th' other do.
And though it in the centre sit,
Yet, when the other far doth roam,
It leans and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.
A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
John Donne
i don't know how to leave Mum and Dad. i don't know how to cope with knowing that i will never live under the same roof as them anymore. i don't know how to deal with the fact that should something happen, i will not be there. i will instead be at the mercy of aeroplane schedules. can i really make sure they're ok from that distance? is it normal to feel like you're breaking a promise you made to them at birth? the promise that you would be there for them when they're old and grey, that you would make sure that they're ok?
there's that story about the person with the patchwork heart. you know the one. about the person who gave pieces of his heart to people that he met. well it's always felt a little like that for me. now more so than ever. because the pieces of my heart will definitely be separated by the seas.
like i said, i'm rubbish at goodbyes.
image courtesy of mainemomma2007 on Flickr.
