Exhausted & Excited

These last few weeks have been spent seeing friends, visiting favorite spots, packing, and sorting out our lives. We've gone out to dinner so many times I can barely count them, and I'm so happy I got to spend some quality time with some of my most favorite people. I couldn't have asked for a better last few weeks on the east coast.

Boating with Jon down the Jersey Shore

Despite all of this happiness, it's been bittersweet. Our cat, Mr. Clemens, has noticed the air of temporariness and has been crying almost every night, and Jon and I have both become exasperated with the endless packing and preparing with such a short time span. It feels weird to know that we're leaving in three short days while being in an area that I've known and lived almost my whole life. I've barely begun to process that I won't see my twin sister and her husband for a year and a half, except via Skype. They're moving to England for a year only a month after Jon and I leave, so even if we do get to go home for the winter holidays, they're not going to be there.

With so many exciting, nerve-wracking things to be handled, I feel simultaneously exhausted and excited. But right now more exhausted than anything. We're having our going away picnic/reception tomorrow (will it rain?) and then will be packing the car up on Sunday and leaving Monday. A part of me wants that time to be now so we can start the biggest adventure of our lives, but another part wants this time in limbo to never end.

Out to lunch with Karen

Dana's birthday vegan dim sum in Philly

The ladies at dim sum

Alex reading her vows to Matt near Boston

Some of my favorite Boston ladies

My sister Kate eating raspberries like Amelie

I guess this could be seen as a type of milestone in maturity. I was up in Boston for about three weeks before I made my first impromptu 8 hour bus trip back home, but I won't have that luxury now. We'll be on our own, supporting and relying on one another through the thick and thin, and I'm looking forward to that new stage of intimacy with Jon. I know whatever the future will bring will be saturated in great stories, happiness, and heartbreak-- all for a new life.