Adieu, Self

There is a quote from The Wonder Years that almost perfectly describes what I have been struggling to put into words for days:

“Growing up is never easy. You hold on to things that were. You wonder what's to come. But that night, I think we knew it was time to let go of what had been, and look ahead to what would be. Other days. New days. Days to come.”

I realized today that the whole process of moving cross-country is reversing the trend I started 9 years ago, when I first embarked on this wild East Coast adventure. We are moving. Not just within the county (too expensive), the state (I've lived in the only two areas of Virginia I could ever see myself in), or the region (Himself has never had the love affair with cities and the East Coast that I have), but to the other side of the world (okay, not really, but given the amount of changes, it may as well be).

I couldn't quite decide if I was folding, giving in to everything I had never wanted to be, going soft with the pending birth of Baby Girl, or if I was just feeling the first twinges of growing pains. I read this quote and realized I was growing up. At the tail-end of my 20s, it seems an odd thing to label a forthcoming experience as "growing up," but I can't think of a better way to put it.

The adventure that defined me as an adult, that consumed most of the last 10 years, is coming to an end, fittingly only months before the birth of our daughter and only a year shy of a new decade of life. Moving has always been a bit melancholic, but the promise of adventure just over the next state line has always been seductively enticing. This time, I wonder if this is IT. The move that will force me to put down some kind of roots, to cease my notions of nomadic wanderings. After realizing that it was sending me into semi-catonic fits, Himself wisely said, "Stop thinking of this as permanent, you're doing to drive me up the wall." (Okay, wise, if not entirely dripping with sympathy).

This adventure seems to have an aura of sad finality about it - not the bad "dressed in black, mourning and wailing" sad, but the "end of an era" sad, as I bid adieu to the only adulthood I've ever known. When I climb into a car in two weeks and wave good-bye to the beloved state that has become home, I know that as this chapter closes on the epoch adventure of my young adulthood, I will never forget my East Coast self. I know that someday, I will share stories and advice and mis-adventures (the ones with good endings, at least) with Baby Girl and my "I remember whens..." of my 20s will be poignantly laced with the world to which I am now waving good-bye.

Farewell.

**On a side note: The last time I moved cross-country (yes, this now qualifies as a trend, as it will be the third time I have picked up and moved more than 2,000 miles away), it took a flight through St. Louis and three suitcases. This time, it involves 2 weeks of packing, a large truck and a whole host of logistical insanity. Proof I really have grown up.