Away we go...

Tonight is my going away party with the Apple crew. The vast majority of my other friends here gone, this is really the final goodbye. I'm excited. Freaked. Rushed. I've got a lot to do in a short amount of time, but it's not as though there were another way. I leave moving like this to the last minute every time. 

The past couple days, walking through Portland and driving around have taught me how much I appreciate Portland and its people. There's a very Laissez-Faire attitude about culture, life, and experience. It's unsettling to outsiders. I'm going to miss it greatly. Also, to go from an area with (1) city vs. the Yay Area with (10,000) different cities is going to be a scalability issue for my head to deal with. Life in Portland. It's simple. It's easy to understand why most people here never leave. I hope to grow old and die here. 

Part of me leaves the packing to the last moment to avoid the emotional downfall that accompanies it. I leave myself so little time that I can't look at things in any other way than "do I need it or not." It's a lot easier to say no when time and space are short. 

I've also decided to have no expectations for the Bay Area. It's going to be as when I left for Portland - who knows? Who knows where I'll live, what I'll do...I will have a better support structure than when I moved to Portland, and having faced this type of adventure before, I feel infinitely more prepared for the potential downfalls. One of the things my mother has always said to me, "I never worry about you finding something to do in your life." I'm starting to live that mantra a bit. I can make this work. Portland was a test in that right. I passed, albeit with moments frustrating and god-awful, but it worked out. After an eye-opening experience of how things could be, I realized it was time to leave. Getting evicted was reassurance of that need. 

What I imagined in my head a few weeks ago is all but dust covered memories that may have been permanently shelved, but the incentive was exactly what I needed. To take a little page from the PeaceCorp, "Life is calling" and I've got to answer. Whether or not my opinion on the matter, it feels right. 

And if I can't trust my instincts, to put it simply, I'm fucked. I'm great at logical planning for other people, but for me, it has to be instinctive and knee-jerk for me to trust it. I work in the order "heart first, then mind." And only recently have I learned to love aspects of my twenties. My life is exciting. Stupidly unrooted. Vacillating and unstructured. But exciting. 

So here I go.