Leaving, on a jet plane...

Quick note from Logan International Airport while waiting for my flight to Iceland.  I feel pretty calm considering.  I have no idea what the next year holds and I'm really OK with that.  In fact I'm looking forward to the unknown.  Packing and downsizing was the most difficult part.  Everything else will be cake.

Saying Goodbye

Saying goodbye to work was difficult, I feel like I grew quite a bit and made so many good friends at Yankee.  I had a comfortable job and a good life and I was giving it all up to move to a country I've never been to, with a language I don't speak.  While I've wanted to live in another country for years, I can't really explain the motivator.  Perhaps I felt too comfortable?  Change and growth can often be painful, but without it I feel stuck.  And this time I felt really, really stuck.  Something had to change and it needed to be drastic.

So I find myself paring down my wardrobe to 2 suitcases.  Ok, 2 suitcases and one tub of shoes I'm putting in storage.  Somewhere in the last couple of years I became a shoe girl and I just can't bear to get rid of some of my favorites, so they'll be in Whately waiting for me.  The process of reducing my "stuff" to one storage facility has also been pretty liberating.  If it weren't for a couple of pieces of furniture that are family heirlooms, I'd probably donate the contents of the whole unit to Goodwill.  Having few belongings is freeing - I feel nimble, agile, and ready to take any opportunity life offers up.

T minus 18

I can't put my finger on when it started, but I've always wanted to see more of the world.  One of my first tastes of travel was in high school.   I lived with a Belgian host family who thought Americans ate ketchup with everything.  It took me a while to realize why it was always on the table but no one was using it.  Andree had thoughtfully bought a case of it in preparation for my 6-week stay and put it out at every meal.

I was 17 during that first trip abroad and had never been away from home for more than a week.  I battled some fierce homesickness and struggled mightily to communicate with a host family that did not speak English.  But I learned so much in such a short time.  Like teenagers irritating their parents is universal.  And that you can be admiring a field of sunflowers in the bucolic French countryside and still lock your keys in the car.  Things weren't so different after all.  So that's what I need to remember as I prepare for the move to Denmark.  18 days left.