here we go again

I take off in about 7 hours. I'm already exhausted in anticipation of being exhausted. I went through a wide gamut of emotions today, from dread to anxiety to brief excitement to shock to denial and back again. Mostly, I'm just tired because I feel like I just did this. But this time, I didn't even really notice my room emptying.

I guess, as K says, it's more like this is the second step in what has been a transitional year than it is another transition on its own.

I feel a little bit like I've traveled so much in 8 months (to SLO, to Austin, to Vegas) that it's just another vacation somewhere. And maybe it'll even feel like that for a little while once I'm there...

My weekend of farewells started with lunch with my co-director, followed by an afternoon o' fun with some kids from Alice. I had promised them Slurpees and talking about life, so that's precisely what we did. Saturday evening, we had a going-away party, and there were even a couple surprise guests. These are people I will definitely be keeping in touch with--I wasn't sure I could make such good friends in such a relatively short time, but I did. (Lesson #428293 of those learned during this reprieve.) And then I know there are also people I've been in touch with here that I will never see again; I'll add those to the very long list of people in my life that I often wonder about.

My only wish for myself, in this "second part of the transition," is that I cling to all I've done and learned here, bring it all with me back to school, settle in, and then promptly take the place over.