the inevitable goodbye post

I am a New Yorker, born and raised. (This has nothing to do with the NYC New Yorker of course; that's a different brand altogether.)

I was born on Ellis Avenue in Jamestown, NY. I'd show you the house I grew up in if I could; it's still perfect in my mind.

When I was four or five, living at Ellis, my dad taught me how to ride a bike. As soon as I caught on, I rode that bike around and around the block until dusk, when my parents called me inside. They didn't let me cross any streets at first, so I just circled the block, deliriously happy with my first taste of independence and adventure.

I am twenty-four now. I spent my first 18 years in Jamestown and Bemus until I left for college. Many college-bound kids (or young adults?? Whatever fits..) hardly glance back here as they move away for college and then jobs. It's hardly a secret that this area is, and has been, choking economically for a while. It doesn't draw many college grads back.

It drew me back. This area has pulled on my heart since my childhood. It's hard to place a finger on why it has a hold on me. Is it the natural beauty in this region, all the history, the determination of this area to keep struggling through this tough time and not give up, or just the simple fact that this is the community that raised me?

Whatever it was, I've been here for nearly 2 1/2 years since graduating from Allegheny. It's been a fantastic time. I built up a life here. I found my place in the community. I even put together a (very complex, very extended, and very hard to explain) fake family up here, beyond my already existing - and wonderful - real family members. I survived as a quasi grown-up as well, with a job, a (3 minute!) commute, a lunch hour, laundry days, grocery shopping, health insurance, dinner parties...the list of Grown-Up Achievements goes on and on.

All of this in my hometown in New York.

Last night, as the rain pattered on the roof and my car sat in the garage - packed to the hilt and ready for my roadtrip down the East Coast - I searched within me for that four year old Rachel who could not stop grinning as she celebrated her new-found independence by biking around the block again and again.

That thirst for adventure and exploration has never left me. It waxes and wanes, but it's always there. The many hard goodbyes I've gone through over the past week and a half could easily have overwhelmed me with sadness or a sense of bitterness on leaving. My attachment to my New York roots could have disillusioned me as I prepared to go from this place. The monumental changes I'm pushing through could have made me so uncomfortable and agitated that I could've just thrown in the towel and clung to the old, familiar, well-known life I've carved out here.

But there's no joy in any of those options, no adventure, nothing new to learn. My time here is done, and God's beckoning me to other places, other people, another life, a new challenge.

Thank you, New York. Thank you, everyone who remains here and helped make this place home to me. It's still a little surreal that this chapter's over, but it's time for me to set my sails and catch the wind blowing toward my next adventure.

time to pick up a new book

Considering the super short length of my last post, I've decided to step it up and write a bit more about my current state of transition/general upheaval.

I am (more or less) settled in at my fake parents' house in Bemus. My room is packed with all my belongings, which has led to two realizations:

1). I am very thankful to my fake parents for giving me a room that is so large.
2). Regardless of how well I thought I was doing with living simply and not getting bogged down with lots of stuff, I still need to get rid of some things. There is absolutely zero chance at fitting all my things into my car, unless I start strapping stuff to the roof. Maybe the sides too.

It's very strange not to be in the apartment anymore with Laura. I realized that my one year in the apartment is the longest amount of time I've spent in one residence for a long time - since 2005, when I was still in high school, living with my parents. Ever since then, the longest I've lived in a dorm, apartment, house (or camp) has been nine months. I feel a little misplaced and rootless right now. I have already begun focusing more on what's coming up (2 more moves in 3 months - first to Charleston, then Chicago) than what's going on here.

I haven't completely checked out of the present yet, but I can feel the undercurrents of the future pulling me in. I know that if I spend too much time thinking about this place - about my life here - about all I'm leaving behind - I would end up feeling rather uneasy and unhealthily nostalgic.

Most things in my present life have become too easy, too comfortable, too familiar. It's like reading an old, worn-in novel I've read a hundred times before, only there are slight variations thrown in each time I open it and reread it. I get a warm, comfortable feeling while reading it because there are so many parts and characters I love in this novel. I can even read between the lines and predict what's coming on the next page.

Which is part of why I need to go. I need to pick up a new book, meet some new characters, be astonished by plot twists and adventures I never even saw coming. It's strange to leave a place, a life, where things are going well and I've settled into my niche. Leaving when things are difficult hardly even requires common sense; choosing to leave when things are good takes a little bit of irrationality. You're giving up something concrete and established and navigable for a vision, a glimmer of hope, that there's something else out there in the world for you. Something you can't even begin to imagine, but you've somehow been missing that thing all along.

I get to ease into a new life, a new city, a new daily rhythm. Same old me, at least it will be at the start. Parts of me will be reshaped and remolded by my brand new world, and I think that's a good thing. Too much of the same makes things stale or bitter, and I can't stomach either.

Keep me in mind as I get through these next few months. Trading in my old, familiar novel for the newest book in this series is going to be surprisingly difficult sometimes. Remind me that the adventure's worth it in the end and that unless a person chooses to give into fear of the unknown and unfamiliar, it has no hold over them.

Here's to a fearless transition to my next adventure.