Saturday, July 30, 2011

Day 1 - July 30, 2011

I decided to start this blog "60 days to Paris" about a month ago, when I began realizing that my departure was no longer something I talked about but something that was really happening to me. Overwhelmed daily by a myriad of thoughts and emotions, I felt like I needed to share the intricacies of moving back to your home country after 12 years.

I had made a to-do list of things that needed to get done in relation to my leaving the country. I had been looking at this list every week for the past 2 months without being able to check anything off this list. In a way, as long as I was not doing these things, I wasn't actually leaving. After several unsuccessful and painful attempts over the last two months, I picked up that list yesterday and starting checking things off. Planning for goodbye party: check. Arranging for cargo, double checking on rates: check. Planning for packing: check. Putting car up for sale (My Hooptie!!!): check. Giving 60-day notice to Landlord: check.

The sending of the invitation to my goodbye party yesterday, immediately triggered a series of phone calls and text messages from friends. "You are leaving?????!!!!". So we are all the same...Unless things are actually happening, we don't believe they are/will! I had been telling these people for months that my departure was to come soon, yet it seems like until they received an invitation to a farewell party, I was not really leaving. Every RSVP I receive is breaking my heart as I try to imagine how I will live without these people in my world. It is a micro universe around me, but it is mine and I have worked hard to build it.