My whole life fit into 9 boxes and 2 suitcases

It's official. Besides the fact that I still have four more days in New York, I have moved all my belongings, with the exception of two suitcases and my laptop. I now finally feel like I'm actually moving, and I’m finally starting to have the moments of complete terror and sadness that I’m leaving have begun to sink in. Thoughts like “What in the hell were you thinking Porch? Sydney?! It’s on the other side of the fucking planet!” to “You do realize you’re never going to see some of these people again, right? What were you you thinking when you decided to move?!”

I think I have the habit of making things seem better than they are when I’m about to lose something. Think about it: When you get out of a semi-not great relationship, you start to remember JUST the good times. I did this once with someone when we ended our relationship, and years later, I’m just now remembering that things weren’t always perfect, but for the first couple of years after we broke up, you would think we had the most picture perfect relationship ever seen. I think that’s what I’m doing with New York. Six months ago, I was ready to leave. I wasn’t happy with my personal life, work was still good and something to look forward to, but overall, I felt like I wasn’t really accomplishing anything outside of my job. Now don’t get me wrong. I have come to realize that I love New York. This city offers so much that you can’t find anywhere else in the world. When I’m ready to come back to America, I can see myself coming back here. But at the moment, I feel as if I’m leaving a picture perfect life, which isn’t really the case.

I think part of this is that I’m struggling with saying goodbye to the people I care about here. I put a lot of emphasis on my personal relationships with my friends, so knowing that I won’t see some of them for a very, very long time is heartbreaking. And honestly, there are some of them that I might never see again. There is no way to easily rationalize this, hence the tears.

My going away party is on Saturday night, and I’m expecting a somewhat bittersweet event. It will be great to have everyone out for one last “hurrah,” but at the end of the night when folks start to head home, I’ll know that the goodbye we have then might be the last one we EVER have. Here’s to the next month of my life, probably one of the most difficult of my life…