This weekend, at one last family beach trip with some of my favorite friends of the south, I looked around at a sand bar that formed islands as far as I could see, I promise it might have been longer than a mile, at pelicans hovering just inches above the thick salty sea, at my children and my dear friends children nestled in close to one another floating and frolicking in tide pools with grins plastered to their faces, and at my own two feet sunk deep into the sand with a rising tide swirling at my hips.  “This place feels like a vacation”, I thought to myself. “Just when you are leaving.” I admitted.  Waiting this long to realize that is too long.  I will never make the same mistake.  I think  back on all my days with my two feet on the ground I realized that they are all just that.

A vacation of sorts.

I am glad I am alive.

Moving magnifies the lack of permanence in life.  It forces me reflect on how big my boys were exactly one year ago when we went to the beach for a birthday party, or how my friends babies have grown so since we were last at a picnic, or how much I expected of my oldest when we moved here and he was a mere four months older than my youngest currently is.  It makes me feel the difference deep in my bones and wish that I had a better way to hold on.  But we don’t.  It doesn’t work that way.  You have this.  You have here.

Saying goodbye three times in three years is a lot.  It is sad to see tears in your dear friends eyes when you embrace them until you don’t know when, it is sad to sit in the passengers seat and shed them silently so your children don’t worry with a speechless husband at your side knowing not what to do but stare at the road.  But, more important than a fleeting moment of sadness is the idea that I have these souls speckled across the continent with a bit of me stored somewhere inside them.  And that I had the chance to have all these wonderful memories filed away in me.

 Motherhood forms a different type of friendship all together.  The camaraderie and understanding is uncanny to any other stage in my life so far.  We can commiserate and congratulate all at once all with the best intentions and with the eye of a common soul.  These children of ours, they give us so much to think about.  So much to search for and strive for.  So much to smile at.

I am so grateful for the days we have had here.  Things became quite real to me last night, when handing over some houseplants.  This step of the process always makes the whole thing come to life.  Pictures are stacked in a corner, the walls are bare.  Knick knacks are safely tucked away and the rest awaits for the movers expertise.  Though a constant weight of sadness tugs at my heartstrings, and behind that is a layer of fear, I am ready for the adventure that lies ahead.

I listen to the wind, to the wind of my soul.  Where I will end up i think only god really knows.  -Cat Stevens

Thank you Georgia.  You have been good to me.