Skillet on the Stove

It's time. In just a few hours I'm getting into the already loaded car and heading 750 miles away, not knowing if I will ever really be back. It's so strange and it just hit me as I was laying in bed and tears started coming unexpectedly from my eyes.

I'm done in Flagstaff though: All of my NAU bills are paid. I finished the last minute errands like getting a haircut, oil change, gas, tire rotation, stopping at Cedar Music and the bank on last time. I am an official member of the National Association for Music Education (MENC) and the Sigma Alpha Iota Alumni Association.

Then today, I had to do some of the hardest parts of leaving. I loaded the car and official moved out of 206. Sure, I had to move out last summer too, but this time I'm not coming back. Throughout the past week and a half, things were slowly disappearing. The pictures on the walls were some of the first things to go, and it immediately made the apartment seem like some foreign place. Today, we turned in the keys and parking permits, and looking around the empty, echoing rooms left a giant pit in my stomach, especially thinking about all the fantastic memories that were made within those walls.

Tonight at dinner, a bunch of my close friends met up at Beaver Street Brewery for a final dinner/goodbye. After dinner, most of us headed to Liza's place where we sang Disney tunes at the top of our lungs, and it made me realize how much I really am going to miss Flagstaff and all my friends here. I realized that life is going to go on for all of them, and maybe I will stick around in their minds for a little bit, but chances are they will move on and not really give it a second thought. Those 750 miles make quite a difference and if I end up teaching in Alaska, it will be an even further thought tucked back into any of their minds.

So here I am, sitting in a friend's bed while they snore away and I have just a couple silent tears trickling down my face. This time of reflection is making me think of my last big event in Flag: the tattoo I got yesterday. It's a simple drawing that I made in high school--an intermingled treble and bass clef, tucked behind my left ear. To me, it means more than just that though. The connected shape doesn't have a start or end point, and the fact that it's on the left side of my body makes it closer to my heart. Behind my ear reminds me to listen deeper for more meaning in what goes on around me, and the combination of bass and treble clefs indicate a harmony of sorts that cannot be surpassed.

As I go on into this next stage of my life, I need to keep these Flagstaff memories with me as a happy period of time, but I also need to be ready to embrace what lies before me.

Why should I be tearing up thinking about what I will be missing when I have so many opportunities lying ahead of me, starting tomorrow?