Not Good at Goodbyes

My bags are packed (not really)It is profoundly unbelievable to me that my next post will come from Florence, Italy.

I look at that sentence and the words just start to lose their meaning. It is as if it is a story I am reading about someone else instead of a sentence happening to me.

Inconceivable!

“I do not think that word means what you think it means.”

Oh, but it does. I can’t wrap my mind around the idea that I’ll be living abroad in 4 days… until faced with the realities of saying goodbye.

It is coming in waves. They break faster now as my time gets shorter.

I had to hug my brothers for the last time before departure the weekend and one hit me broadside. Dan said, “you’re still not good at goodbyes…” Nope. I get chocked up just thinking about the moment. No. I’m still not good at goodbyes. My brain absolutely short circuits when I think about kissing Little Miss for the last time.

Bidding farewell to those that we love shouldn’t be easy should it?

Saying sinara to stuff is one thing. To let go of people and face the reality of being a half a world away from them — that is something else entirely.

Under the excitement

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Acceptance

Fortune

I wanted this.

I worked for it.

I achieved it.

Simple right?

Last Friday I was offered an internship as the librarian for my University’s Study Center in Florence. As in Italy.

After quite literally falling on the floor when I got the email I thought about it for oh about 20 seconds… Um they are supporting me living a year in effing Tuscany? Not only a “hell yeah” I think this qualifies as a hell-damn-your-sweet-skippy-arse YES!

I penned my (more eloquent) “yes” with great, wild, crazy, joy and trembling hands… before they could change their minds. Then I was literally running around chasing my niece and smiling like an idiot in laughing, gleeful, abandon.

Relief. Release. Disbelief.   

I don’t know how many times I can express pure dumbfoundedness at where my life is and where it is going without sounding completely rudderless. I promise I’m in control. I might not plan things through A-B-C but I worked for this with intention and purpose.

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