June 25
Finally, we’re off! It feels like eons ago that we decided we would do this project and even longer than that since we knew we wanted to leave Klamath Falls and now it seems that suddenly, the day is upon us. It was a busy one and by the time we left, I felt kind of numb. It has been a very long process and it’s actually hard to believe that we are gone.
We brought our cat to her foster home where she will be until another person can be found for her. So it was another sad good-bye. It feels like all I have been doing for a week is saying good-bye to important people in my life and crying.
Then came the fun part--loading the truck. We had to leave some stuff behind, of course, since there was more stuff and less room than we figured on. But we got what was important loaded into the truck, leaving enough space for the people to squeeze themselves in, and we headed out at about 2. We drove through some familiar territory and then into parts of Oregon where I had never been, arriving at The Dalles at about 7:30. We got out what we needed from the back of the truck and sort of vegged out for a few hours before going to bed. It just doesn’t seem real. I kept thinking about the fact that it feels so weird to be not exactly on vacation, because there’s no place I am going back to at the end of it all. I have nowhere I need to be and no timetable beyond the next couple of days. As I looked at landscapes and places I had never seen before I felt a sense of wonder that for most of the next 3 months, that is exactly what I will be doing. And as I walked around what was my house for the last time, thinking about how much loss I had suffered there and how unhappy I’d been, I felt a heavy sadness inside. But at the same time, I could feel the little kernel of hope that has been growing for the past few months and I felt excited because this is the beginning of a new direction, or maybe it’s just a continuation of the old direction that is leading us further into who we are. I don’t know. But in any case, it’s a fresh start and it’s happening somewhere else. Or in many somewhere elses. I wonder how long it will take before it seems real.
