watch my back & light my way

Now's when it happens. The part of myself, always on the go, that I rarely admit to. Now's the part when I comprehend all I'm leaving behind, allow it to fill up the space in my body and then I just ache. All the people I'm going to leave. In all the states and all the cities. All the people I've met so far on my constant-moving journey, but have clung to in my own way,  on my way. My life has pretty much always been characterized by the inability to be with all the people I love all the time. I mean, when you're bouncing around the planet, there's no way to keep them all in the same room with you.


But there's something colder and bleaker about an international separation.


Knowing that no matter how far North I head, some unknown-ly huge part of my soul belongs to the South, is her property and always will be. Where my family will always be.


And I think about all my newest friends. The people that I only came to in the last year, when I already knew I was leaving. Oh, I think, I'm not ready to leave you! I want more time with you and  you and you. And there's never enough time. Not with any of them.


Now's when I stop thinking of the excitement that awaits me (my castle, all the new friends I'll make and what I'll learn--the thing I've had to focus on in fantasy for the last 6 months to keep me going) and these few days,  I can only seem to think of what I'm giving up. And it's quite a lot.


As a child, I used to practically short circuit realizing you actually have to make choices that lead you down paths that cannot be undone. That negate the option of doing something else. It was a big crater in my whole invincible 8 or 9 year old child philosophy  that I would not actually be able to do everything all at once, be in 5 places at one time. I'm almost 30 now, and I still don't think I'll ever get over that.


Because if there was enough of me or enough time or money for it all, I'd split myself up and go be with everyone I love all over this insane planet so we could tell jokes and play bluegrass together and dance and sing and stay up so late we drift off while still talking and laugh and laugh and laugh as we speed down the road to  the next place, always together.


Watch my back and light my way. Watch over all those born St. Christopher's Day. I find it sort of funny that St. Christopher is both the saint of bachelors and of travelers.