In Retrospect

I was trying to keep my brave face on, although everything was making me cry.

I'd gotten my new driver's license, a sharp new pair of glasses and a haircut. Most of my things were packed, although I would only be bringing four suitcases with me upon leaving. The rest would arrive when my family made the 10-hour car ride a few weeks later.

I'd done as much as I could to prepare for greeting new faces and sights; I was to spend the last couple of days saying goodbye to that which was familiar.

I spent the 28th laughing and ignoring the ticking clock. I was in Massachusetts, spending a day or two with M and her family - my adopted second family. We lounged about and chatted; they bolstered my apparently shaky confidence with assurances that I was going to have an amazing experience in the new city.

I tried to believe them. I was excited, to be sure, but scared to death. That I was in the Boston area - the runner-up in the "Where Is V Going To Start Out" pageant - made it easier and harder at the same time. I knew I wanted to be there ultimately - but would I discover later that I'd made the wrong decision, that I was supposed to be there now?

M and I drove to Cambridge in the evening, parking near the blue house that held inside it a venue I'd never been to before. I grinned upon seeing strong wooden beams and gleaming floorboards when we walked in. A litte dinner downstairs, then we climbed up the stairs to the performance space above. I felt as if I had stepped into some unknown barn as I looked up to the bare rafters and stepped across the wooden floor.

The crowd was larger than the other performance I'd attended, and it felt strange to have to jostle for a good vantage point. The audience members around me surprised me as they sang along to nearly ever song - I was happy to join in. The bright, excited smiles looking back at us from the stage made me realize how happy I was to be there. M laughed from her spot next to me; it was the perfect way to prepare for the new venture. I was going out with a song and a smile.

We waited when the show ended. I was hugged, we chatted and I tried to downplay the nervousness that I'd been able to forget for a couple of hours. It was starting to creep back in. I was introduced to several people and focused instead on keeping a polite, bright smile on my face.

I tried to blink back tears as we left. It was partly because I had no idea when I would again see someone I had just begun to get to know, but M knew the tears were less for him than for the process I was beginning to undertake.

That was my first official goodbye. And the hardest ones were still to come, and there would be a series of them within the following 24 hours. It had finally begun to hit me.

From back then:

and the colors are much brighter now
it's like they really want to tell the truth
we give our testimony to the end of the summer
it's the end of the summer,
you can spin the light to gold.
- dar williams (thanks beth)