Monday 28 April 2014

Seven Years

Tonight it's cold and it's rainy and it has gotten dark far too early. I am grateful to have a trip to look forward to. And this trip is a really big deal. We will spend a month in our old city, our old neighbourhood, back in the States. It was seven years ago this Tuesday, we arrived in Wellington. That's usually what I think about on the anniversary our arrival. But this year I am thinking about our departure. We woke up that morning, got in our rental car, and drove to our friend's flat to unload one more thing - an old computer. Then we stopped in a cafe - I think it was Royal Ground. We sat there with our coffees, looking across the table at each other, spending these last few minutes in our city. I was so busy with logistics up til that moment, that it hadn't hit me, really down to the bones hit me til then what we were doing. I remember that as the moment it started to feel real.

Seven years later we are going back for the first time. I am anxious about logistics once again - that's just who I am - but I'm starting to feel something else. Excitement. Anticipation. It will be so amazing to see everyone. It will be really strange but also really good to see our old city again. We usually spend our anniversary of moving to New Zealand by visiting a new place in New Zealand. But this is the year we look back at what we left behind. And it will be Spring. This year, we get an extra month of Spring.

No comments: