One Year Later

When I posted my first entry on this blog, just shy of one year ago, I found myself wondering what I would find to write about.  I'll be the first to admit that many of the subsequent posts haven't been works of art, but I always seem to have something more to say.  :-)

This is where I share with friends. My other blogs, Tales of a Well-Lived Life and My Southern Oregon Coast each have some direction and hopefully, better and more focused writing.  The latter will soon be discontinued, of course, as my path takes me forward to Georgia.  I expect to begin a new one there, focusing on garden development and perhaps changes in the house as well.

Reading back over that first post, I find it interesting that in a way I've come full circle over this year.  Then, I wrote about plans to return to Georgia and all the reasons why.  A day or so later I decided to make an offer on a little house I'd been lusting over for awhile.  Nothing has changed, and yet, everything has changed.  That house deal just never was meant to be -- I loved it, but it had maintenance and condition issues, plus I suspected that the yard was much too shaded for any serious level of growing veggies.  I opted to go anyway -- even had an apartment waiting for me and a D-Day planned for May 1st.  Why am I not there now?

Well -- about three weeks before D-Day I had a truly overwhelming sense that I was doing the wrong thing, that I was not ready to leave Oregon or the West Coast in general.  I couldn't do it.  In one of my famous zigzags I drove down here to Brookings on Easter weekend to see this building, see if the town was as nice as I remembered, then went home and canceled the movers and the apartment in Georgia.

I needed these months here.  I needed to spend time walking beaches and trails and hugging redwoods.  I needed to see Crater Lake.  I needed a nice, long visit to San Francisco and the Bay Area. I needed a gentle separation from my buddy in Eugene. I needed to say goodbye to all that I love out here, to all that drew me to Oregon and its beautiful coast 14 years ago.

Quite frankly, I still have far too many emotions about leaving all of these, but I'm far more committed to moving than I was in April, and far more ready to do so.  I love Oregon, and I love the Pacific Northwest in general.  I could happily live here forever.  IF I could afford to buy a house here; IF I had a family or significant other; IF I had a hobby or job that filled the empty spaces.  IF any of those existed, I would not be moving. 

Unfortunately, none do exist and I need to go where I can make at least a few of them happen.  I'm just not ready for the rocking chair in front of the TV that seems to be the lot of so many of my neighbors here.  I'm still healthy, strong, energetic.  And lonely.  In Cedartown, at least I'll have genealogy contacts -- people with a common interest -- and a couple of relatives, plus I'll have the house and garden, plus the bike trail and the Appalachian Trail and genealogy and a dog or cat or both and...and...so much I don't have here.  I'll have purpose, and that's what I need. I won't be doing any whitewater kayaking however -- that photo is from the past and will remain that way, as much as I loved it.  It was taken on the Etowah River, if I remember correctly, in North Georgia. 

I know I sound as if I'm not ready to go, or as if I have misgivings, but that's just sentiment talking.  I'd leave tomorrow, if I could.  I am SO ready to move forward beyond these days and weeks of waiting, SO ready to start the rather daunting work of turning 1/4 acre of grass into grass-less gardens, so ready to be in some place that will be mine, a home where the manager can't fuss at me for using the laundry too early in the morning. SO ready for the last part of my life to begin.  I may shed a tear or two, just as I did when I passed by an Appalachian Trail highway crossing the morning I left Georgia 14 years ago.  If I could leave my beloved AT behind, I can leave Oregon behind.

I'll miss these beaches and the lovely winter weather, but I'm ready to say goodbye.  More or less.