Pea and I leave for our trip home for the holidays tomorrow morning. For him, it’s a jaunt home, and epic tour de force of four households and much visiting (laughter and love and food and fun!). For me, it’s the first leg of my return to Canada, a one-way ticket.
I spent the first week of my vacation avoiding a grant application by watching Harry Potter movies and generally being a bump on a log.
I spent the second week of my vacation wandering la Grande Pomme city, writing the application, and getting a heap of stuff organized for my move.
I took the third week of my vacation, this past week, for me. We threw a farewell party, and nearly everyone here who is important to me was able to come; mulled wine is powerful motivation. I took the streetcar out to the ocean and went for a long beach ramble, barefoot even though it was chilly. I rented a bike and biked the perimeter of the city, continued over its most famous bridge, and took the ferry back. I had lunches and teas and drinks with good friends. I made a surprise candle-light dinner for Pea and I on our last quiet evening, featuring staples from our life here – roasted brussel sprouts, the guacamole we love, a bottle of nice wine we had picked up two Christmases ago. It was a good week.
We are packed. We are ready. I am sad to leave, but so looking forward to seeing family. Sad to move from my friends here, but ready to put down roots in a new place. Scared and excited in equal measure for this new chapter, where I may fail brilliantly, or succeed wildly, or strike a balance somewhere in the middle.
But first, four Christmases and a full family reunion. Bring on the cookies!
labmonkey2 
Oh the cookies! I requested chocolate thumbprints and nuts and bolts. I am so excited!
It is scary to leave somewhere and start over, but it is also something you are really good at doing. And it will probably feel weird to think about it like this, but the place you are going to, the new place, will one day be home, and it will be your home for years and years and years. You are getting to put real roots down now, and that is exciting too.
And, please. As IF you will fail. You are going to be amazing. Because you already are amazing. And you have been getting ready for this for years.
xoxo
“Scared and excited in equal measure for this new chapter, where I may fail brilliantly, or succeed wildly, or strike a balance somewhere in the middle.”
Well said. Wishing you so much wild brilliance in 2016!