I walk in the air between the rain.
Through myself and back again .
Where?
I don't know.
Counting Crows - Round Here

This song has been haunting me lately. It has a way of making me think about the past and singing it with Laura and Julie A and Amy all gathered around a little coffee table, computer screens up, acoustic guitars comforting the stress of the week. It makes me face where I am now and all of the decisions that the future inevitably brings. It makes me feel good about the falling snow and hot chocolate and cats that attack my feet when I move.
I had a good conversation today about the oddities of leaving - moving for good - in December. There is not the warmth and finality that comes in May. There is no ceremony...no 'what are you doing this summer' conversations. There is Christmas and finals and planning for the spring and friendships lost in routines of work and family and school with the expectation of reconnecting after break.
There will be promises to come and visit, and I will...but not as much as we tell ourselves to make the departure easier to handle. Life gets in the way and people move on, and I've always been someone who embraces the future more than the past.
This has been my home for 5 years. I've grown...fallen...loved...laughed...raged. I came here 5 years ago a nieve 18 year old who knew nobody in the entire state. I leave a much different person, and it's weird to think that the transition is happening without it really happening. It's lost in so many other things and feels very anticlimatic.
I wanted closure - a farewell that did justice to my time here.
Maybe the only farewell that could do that is a "See you later."