Much of the house's contents been packed into boxes, and many of the remaining items sold or given away. Only three people, besides myself, remain here, and little more than a week stands before they, too, will leave. The house will be empty, the keys turned in, and the place I've called my escape, my sanctuary, and my home for two years will be just another house on another street in a town called Galveston.
Five months ago, I fought to leave this place, losing tears and sleep and hope over the idea that I might have to remain nearby. Yet even after I settled in to a city I love, a city that I am confident is right for me, I kept being drawn back to this dirty, beautiful island. This is the fourth trip I've made, and it was planned well in advance, with full knowledge that it would be the last.
Tonight my heart is breaking to know that my friends, who I've grown to love and hate and everything in between, won't be here waiting for me when I want to come back. They have been, and will be, tossed across the country toward jobs and families and new adventures.
Never again will I ignite the stove with a lighter because it hasn't worked properly in months, or fight the bathtub faucets for the right to shower in hot water. I'll never sit on this sofa and reminisce about that one time I had shingles and spent a week on it, stoned, because the doctor gave me vicodin. I won't ask Luke to change the light bulbs because I can't reach them, or sit out on the porch with Maggie while she smokes a cigarette and we talk about life and boys and how to decipher each. I won't jump into a living room dance party with our favorite music station blaring from the TV, or have brunch at the kitchen table, family-style, laughing about the latest stories.
Sure, I can always come back to Galveston. I'll bring friends or a boyfriend or even my kids someday. We'll go to the aquarium at Moody Gardens and play on the beach. Maybe we'll catch a movie out under the stars on the Strand, or take the ferry over to Bolivar and watch for dolphins on the way. We'll get dinner and Blue Bell and a sunburn, and we'll talk about what a great weekend it was.
But it won't ever be the same.
I think one of the hardest things about growing up is realizing that life is on a trajectory that we simply do not have the power to interfere with. Just as our lives move forward and change, so do those around us. In the last year, I helped move my parents, my friends, and myself. Friends have gotten married and had children and started new jobs and lost old ones. Nothing is as it was, and though I want to cling to some sort of normalcy, something steady and true that spans the years, it's just not there. Home and family have become relative terms, flexible enough to accommodate the current situation, yet still powerful enough to really mean something when employed.
This weekend, on top of everything else, also marks exactly two years since I packed my car and set off on this grand adventure. Yesterday was the second anniversary of my departure; Monday will be of my arrival. I can hardly believe that two years - 730 days - have passed between then and now.
It's been an incredible adventure.
Thank you, Galveston, for the memories. You'll always have a piece of my heart.
Much love from Texas,
C-Jo
