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Last week, everything changed.
I don’t particularly want to talk about the details in public just yet, but there’s a strong chance that I’m going to be leaving my beloved little town on the ocean for Seattle within the next few months. This wasn’t the plan, and I’m pretty broken up about it, but unless a relative miracle happens…this is the reality. No timeline yet, but it’s real enough that I’m starting to work on a round of possessions purging this weekend.
I went to the rainforest this morning, as I tend to do when I’m heartbroken. I left before daybreak, and sunrise found me winding my way around Lake Crescent. I pulled off the road to get a picture of the dark hills brooding above the glassy lake. I took those pictures, turned around…and discovered that the eastern sky was aflame. Sunrise had caught me unawares.
When I got home, I ended up discarding the pictures I originally stopped to take, but the pictures of the sunrise were astoundingly beautiful. (One of them is above.)
Maybe that’s a metaphor. I don’t know. I guess I can only hope.
In the car this morning, I was making a list of things I’ve learned about myself in the last year:
- I’m good with being alone. Like, really good. I know all of two people here, and one of them is the barista I see every morning at the coffee shop. I’m perfectly content with this.
- It takes about a year for me to feel genuinely settled in in a new place. Part of my discontent about having to move is that it feels like I just got here.
- I probably don’t need a residence as big as the one I currently have. But I like having the space.
- What I do need, however, is quiet. The place I used to live was on a busy road, in an apartment building. I hadn’t realized how that wore on me until I moved here and felt an enormous wave of relief.
Sadly, I’m going to lose the quiet when I move back to Seattle. I might have to invest in ear plugs.
And, of course, everything else is in dire upheaval. In the grand scheme of things, I am incredibly fortunate.
I will hold onto that, in the days to come.
