My bags are packed

As a child I detested change. It caused me no end of nervousness and abject terror. A new grade in school was enough to make me cry. Any deviation from safe and regular patterns was scary, and to be avoided.

And then I grew up and chose this life and this lifestyle. I've chosen to live and work in every time zone in the Continental US (and don't think I'm not ready to come over there Hawaii and you too Alaska). Since leaving college (a major change to be certain) I've lived for some time in seven states. I've had two incredible romantic relationships and made friends by the campaign load. Somehow a child who feared change has become a man who can deal with it. I don't like it. But I do it, over and again. I'm hoping that moving to Washington means a respite from nomadic life, but when the next great chance to work for the next great candidate calls in a year or two I may be right back in the Saturn heading West or South or who knows where.

My apartment is empty. I'm sitting on the newly scrubbed floors having loaded all my belongings into the car. And the song "Leaving on a Jet Plane" keeps floating in and out of my consciousness. When I was very little and would wake in the middle of the night crying my mother or father would take me from my crib and pace with me. Each of them would sing that song to me. It's not the most reassuring song, it's about being left and leaving. It's about uncertainity and about losing something that you love. But I can't help but wonder if somewhere in all those loving renditions my folks didn't plant just a small seed of acceptance, a small notion that it's alright to leave. It's alright to move and grow to travel and risk. So now it's that time. My bags are packed, and I'm ready to go. Again.