Leaving The Familiar

My chest is heavy and the tears are constantly at the back of my throat. Change is coming. I am making lists and deciding what to pack in my head. I am having last minute coffee dates and quick trips to all corners of the State. I'm saying goodbye to friends and family. I have been fairly displaced for the last few months traveling from one adventure to the next using Minnesota as my base. Now, I am making that last jump to be permanent for an indefinite amount of time. But it means packing one more time and having to say goodbye to people and places I love.

The Land of 10,000 Lakes has a beauty of familiarity for me. This is where I grew up. The combines harvesting in the fields, the sun setting on the lakes, the Minneapolis skyline, the bluegrass bands playing with washboards and spoons, the flannel wearing bearded urban woodsmen, are all pictures of comfort and safety. It is a world I understand.

It is also a place where snow covers the ground for way too many months and temperatures don't rise above freezing for weeks/months on end. As much as my heart loves this place, I don't love winter and I don't want to do it this year. I can't go back to the equator right now but I can take myself off to a place without coming snow, ice and freezing temps. I am looking forward to not having to shovel my car out and pay high utilities because of heat.

I don't fear change since I make it happen so often. But I really hate it. And I struggle with the process of change. Once again, and hopefully for the last time for a long time, I am fighting that clench of anxiety and overwhelmingness that courses through my whole body making me shaky and often immobile. I have made this choice to move and I know it is right but it is hard.

Becky was visiting from Georgia! She loves Fall and even Winter in Minnesota
but notice she doesn't live here anymore either.