Preparing for Flight

As the time grows nearer for me to leave, my excitement is becoming laced with anxiety. I can't wait to get a taste of my new life, submerging myself in my new culture, meeting my new friends and family, and exploring a new land. As much as I have to look forward to, I am unprepared as always to say goodbye to those I love. Back when I only dreamed of the wanderlust I was to one day experience, I often thought the tightly woven family I was a part of was a curse, something keeping me on a short rope, only allowing me to go so far until I once again returned to where I was tied. Now as I have grown older, and that rope has lengthened quite a bit and I have been able to see more of the world, I realize that I am one of the luckiest people in the universe. I am so blessed to be surrounded by a loving, caring, strong and sturdy support system. Each person in my family is unique and amazing in their own ways, and after several years of moving around and living away from home, I have been fortunate to come home and spend the past five months surrounded by them and soaking up their love. I'm pretty sure I have absorbed every drop of it, and I am hoping that will be enough to last me this next sum of time on the opposite side of the world from them. In all of the time that I have been away from home since I left the first time nearly eight years ago, the separation never seems to get easier. In fact it gets harder. The farther I go, the longer I am gone, the sweeter it all is when I return. I have come to accept that this push and pull will always be my life. This desire to leave, to wander, explore, make a difference, will be balanced by what I have to come back to. Just as the swallows gather to leave our farm each fall for warmer Argentine skies, I pack my bags for my next journey. They find their way home each spring to feed in the bounty of the freshly mowed grass and bask in the warm sunlight. I am one of them, certain to leave, and certain to return home again.