It’s Over and It’s Beginning

We are sitting at the airport waiting to take off. Everything these past ten days has been surreal. Mixed up. Sad about endings; happy about new beginnings. Lots of time spent with friends. I’d been holding it together fairly well but finally had my cathartic release during the last hour in the house. Packing up the bags, taking one last walk through all the rooms to honor both the good and bad times we’ve had in each – saying goodbye to all that we’ve achieved and accomplished there in the last eight years of our lives, it was too much and the tears came. And came. And came. Joy was there to take us to the airport and patiently waited outside so we could have our ‘walk about’ alone. Strange…. I didn’t cry when we said goodbye to friends, mainly because I know they are an intrinsic part of our lives and we’ll be seeing them again in just a few months, but the house I’ll never see again. It was our first home, we’d put so much sweat into it, it bore witness to our whole relationship – the early years, the engagement, the marriage, life with roommates and without, years of Monday night gaming, parties too numerous to count. The leaving and letting go of the house represents closure of a particular phase in our lives and a part of me mourns its passing. We closed the door, shed another tear on the front steps, hugged and said goodbye to our neighbor and then we were off. Off to new beginnings.