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.