Emotions and Anticipation

Images wedge sharply against my mind and create memories. My everyday experiences become lucid and nostalgic. Portland's green street corners grow for me and the northwest seems legendary. My friends are flawless and beautiful and their faults melt quickly under rosey vision. Our lives seem so perfect and my future so blank.

But here I go, as I always do. Quickly, sporadically, I ooze of youthful impulse. My sadness is building though I have no time for it now. It will continue to grow until it bursts in an undoubtedly all girl environment. Our last ladies night filled with wine, giggles and gossip. My tears will finally expose themselves and we will have a good cry. Not our last mind you, our bond is too deep for such finality. But here we are, all grown up. Moving, breeding, wedding evolving-time is relative, time is flying.

It's always easier to be the one that leaves. I remind myself of that when the pangs of sadness hit. I don't shy away from it, rather I embrace it and hope that in doing so I can move on. I move reflectively through nostolgia and tug gently on my roots, for it's time to lift them, tug them, make them fly. I am young and have too many places to see before they go deep, deep, deep into domesticity. Perhaps they never will.

On this journey we go south, into mountains smaller and more ancient than the familiar Cascades. I will be enveloped by the humid, lovely and disturbing culture of the south. It has a lot to teach me. I have a lot to learn.
I am ready.