Move along.

I've decided its time for me to pack things up again and move out. I want to say I feel completely torn about it because I do, but the emotion attached to the situation is unlike what I think logic dictates. Im terribly excited to move back to Olympia because I love the city and everything about it. There is no where I would rather live to finish out being 19.

Moving home to Kingsburg to do an independent contract has been a blessing and a curse. I've been here since March, and living with my parents has not only helped me save money, but also allowed me a sense of security. Hometowns give people a sense of contentedness. They grow accustomed to it; the comfort of knowing everyone, knowing where everything is and where they stand in the grand scheme of the town's outlying borders. I am very happy here. I love my parents as people and as good conversationalists. I love the people I surround myself with here, drinking coffee till all hours of the night at the one diner thats open. I have a job I love to hate and hate to love, and a cute boyfriend who lives across town.

In conjuntion to all of that, I have a tiny voice hissing in my ear. I recognize it as my own, the younger version of me that warns me about the disease I've been fighting all my life. A cancer so devious that it leaches into your veins and kills you slowly. It gnaws ravenously at your soul, injuring it beyond repair before you have time to plan your course of action. I will not succumb to complacency.

Perhaps this realization is the coming-of-age I have been looking for.

The other day I was sitting in my living room with my father. The atmosphere was casual, so I asked him, "Do you expect me to come home next summer [after my first year at Evergreen]?" Thinking I knew his exact answer, I settled again with my back pressed deep into the loveseat and stared at him across the room.

He set down the paper he had been staring at and cast his glance at me. "Rachel, much as you are always welcome here, I dont expect you to ever come home."

...

It is a weird feeling. I can leave and never come home. To visit, yes. To live? Probably not. I had always assumed Id come back in the summers, but now I consider other things.

Slow down.

My graduation party is next week. Its weird. It is finally December and I am leaving this month. Time goes by very quickily. I hope I can do everything I want to do before I leave.