Signposts

Right now, I SHOULD be packing (the leftover stuff I haven't gotten to yet & have been using) but instead I am procrastinating. I mean, who needs sleep? Especially when there is a 6.5 hour drive looming in the oh so near future. (and then the other 40 hours of drive time after that...)

It has been an interesting day ...lunch w/ friends, lots of packing, moving, hauling, cleaning, trivia / dinner w/ friends ...a massive thunderstorm downtown, a sidestep to another bar for a drink... hoping the rain would subside. Even though I am really excited about the journey ahead, I am tearful for all the nouns (people, places & things) I am leaving behind. The new friendships I have formed on late night train rides after trivia, the old friendships that have seen me through many moments (happy & sad), the friendships that have grown slowly & the ones that sprouted immediately as if they had a life of their own.

I feel like I have grown up in Charlotte ...well, become an adult in Charlotte (well, that definable moment took place in Montana ...BUT...). I have grown so much since I arrived! And each of the people I met along the way have somehow shaped that. I cannot express how much every single person means to me, even those small or short lived encounters... the pieces of everyone I have stolen to make me a better person.

I can remember the first time I visited Charlotte. It was over Christmas break in college and I remember riding past downtown, down Independence. So many things have changed since then. The open fields that now house businesses or homes, the roads that have widened and the uptown skyline with all those gorgeous new buildings! Part of me feel that life stops when you leave a place but it continues to grow in our absence. Which is probably why they say you can never go home again...because its not the home you remember.

am going to miss y'all terribly. But its time to follow this path.

I'm off to Nashville in the morning with my trusty sidekick blu. (That is, if I can get to sleep so I can wake up in 4 hours to get new tires, drop stuff off at Goodwill one last time, a final stop to storage & to pack up my car....)