“Living is like tearing through a museum. Not until later do you really start absorbing what you saw, thinking about it, looking it up in a book, and remembering - because you can’t take it in all at once.”

—	Audrey Hepburn

so i find myself here, the floor strewn with paper clothes and books, overwhelmed, overheated, and drowsy-eyed. i haven’t written in awhile, and that’s because this month back has been a flurry of nearly non-stop activity.  i am a mere three days away from returnal to home.

i said it. home.

i cannot, in all honesty, call this town or state home anymore; i suppose i cannot correctly call any place my true home; but Mexico is where I find my thoughts and heart always gravitating towards.

i haven’t had time to sit down and absorb the depth (almost the somberness) of what’s happened to me in the past month in the States. it is all slowly starting to catch up in my head (i have a difficult time processing almost anything, really). the support I have received, even from people i don’t know or haven’t talked to in years, is unreal. i did not expect people to give so easily or with such heart and kind words, but they have. today, after reading the poster i put up at our rummage sale, a lady came up to me and said “I don’t have much, but take this,” and handed me a dollar. i said thank you, and she continued to look around with a friend she came with, but didn’t buy anything. she didn’t have much to start with, and what she did give me, she gave before looking around for something to spend it on. what heart. i've got some lessons to learn.

yesterday i spent six hours with my closest group of friends- this hadn’t happened since i'd left in February. things have changed and shifted between us, like they always do, but some of the ways have been more heavy than others. i got so nervous beforehand i had to lay on the floor and take deep breaths, haha- it sounds silly to me now, but it’s what i did. and we all enjoyed our time together, as much as you can when you know that after these couple hours, everything will be different- everything already is different. for the last hour, we just sat around, asking “remember when?”s and telling stories and poking fun. it felt like zero time had passed and that everything, just for a bit, was normal again. but then I had to leave- say goodbye- realize, truthfully, (and i hate to be a downer) that this was probably our last time all together.

see, goodbyes have always been such a big deal for me. like so final. in the past, i have tried to pump them full of encouragement like steroids, to share every last little detail on my heart and how this person affected my life. it sounds kinda woman-y, all dramatic and emotional, right? but what i’ve come to realize is that I should have been telling them those things all throughout our friendship. i shouldn’t finally just blurt out the truth right before i walk out. that’s stupid, and cowardly. but so we said goodbye, as i’m leaving for Mexico for a year, the boys are off to big-league college in another city, and little sister starts a new chapter in her life while trying to find a way to still get over and through the past one.

too many transitions and goodbyes in a short frame of time can really wear a person out. i am just so tired of it.

how do you say goodbye to the three souls who
have defined the word home for you
for the past seven years? 

....i’m still figuring that one out. let me know your thoughts.

cheers to generous hearts and the ability of a human spirit to get so close to another's.