Much as we wish it were otherwise, life can only be lived forwards. And sometimes, even when you are as certain as you think you can be about something, you find out you were actually quite wrong. And sometimes, that's not even a bad thing.
I have so much to tell you, really, but it is all so jumbled in my congested, fluish head that I can't possibly get it all out in one entry that would make sense. I still need to write about JournalCon, but if I start with that, I'm not sure I'll ever catch up.
So we're starting with the present. And the biggest thing going on in my present is that I'm moving to Washington, DC.
I think I mentioned this briefly before, although I'm too lazy to go look for it. But I've been considering this move for several months, and it turned the corner from consideration to decision last Thursday evening, when I told my parents.
I wasn't planning on telling them now, actually. I was waiting until Thanksgiving, when I could sit down and discuss it in person. But I was chatting with them on Thursday, my mother asked the question I'd been foolishly hoping she'd never ask:
"So, did you ever hear about the Kansas bar?"
Oh. Right. The Kansas bar. The one I failed after calling her during the lunch break to tell her how easy it was.
So I confessed. No, it didn't go so well, so I'm going to suck it up and take the whole thing over in February. They asked why I was bothering, and so I told them. It's because I need to get one more point on the MBE to waive into the DC bar.
I think it probably started after they were here in July, and how awful I felt having to say goodbye to them.
And then in August, my friend Mary's grandfather died. He lived in Wichita, so she was able to be there in three hours. And I thought about my dear old grandfather, who's going to be 96 next week, and how not only do I want to be there in three hours when the time comes, but how I want to spend more time with him now, while he's still around.
And then in September, people flew planes into buildings, and all I wanted to do was go home.
And I was surprised, but not really, to learn that I wasn't actually home already. Kansas City is, and always will be, my hometown. It is comfortable, and it is familiar. It was home once, but it isn't anymore, and I don't think it ever can be again.
So I'm leaving, and I'm going to a city that, while it isn't as familiar as where I am now, it is not exactly brand new.
It is, after all, the city of my birth.
And so it will be there that I will start to live my life forwards.