Just because I’m feeling particularly thankful these days. 

Grateful that my mom came up this weekend to help me start the process of packing up my life + apartment…we got a lot done, but it was also nice just to spend time with her. We talk on the phone at least once a day, but there’s just something about talking in person, over dinner.

Grateful that I’m moving to Atlanta in six days. I can’t even explain. The last six years of my life spent in small towns have been my best years so far, but I’m a city person. I love lights and concrete and options and crowds, and I can’t wait to get back to that. For now I’m non-stop Yelping restaurants, parks, bookstores, malls…

Grateful for all the feature writing I got to do over the last year. I have an event preview to write this week in addition to training my replacement, but I wrote what’s most likely my last “real” feature at the News-Topic on Friday. I wanted to put a ton of time into it and really make it worthwhile, and I liked the way it came out. Here’s my favorite piece of it:

He remembers all the old cadences, all the old words. “Well, how have you been getting along?” the conversation begins. And later, as the customer leaves, it’s, “Take care,” as they’re lingering to keep the conversation going, backing toward the door. These are ancient layers of conversation, stacked as high as the ceiling, gathering in repetition over the swish of the broom in the background.

Grateful for this apartment, which I did not love when I decided, with very few other options, to rent it. It turned out to be the perfect place to spend the last seven months, and there will always be a place in my heart for the first place I lived completely by myself.

Grateful for my best friend and grateful, in the strangest way, for this time of saying goodbye and living in different cities and doing life separately for a while. Everything’s a trade-off, even the best new things and the best opportunities, and it’d be pretty sad if my life here wasn’t something it hurt to leave. Here’s to weekend visits and learning to love Skype.