It feels sort of like Christmas.

I had to take some time away these past two weeks.  I couldn't unplug entirely - work and life rarely allow that sort of escape anymore - but I reached a tipping point where I knew something had to give.  I needed a step back, desperately needed to catch my breath.  Weeks ago, when I flipped the calendar from March to April, I was fully aware that I was heading into a bit of an insanely busy month.  I was traveling every weekend, and on the road some during the week as well.  Deadlines, urgent emails and a heavy workload, I expected.  A massive re-organization at work-place?  Eh, I kind of suspected.  Horrific Marathon bombings, city wide lock-downs, bombing suspects that live just one street over from the apartment I've called home for almost five years?  None of that was exactly part of the plan.  

It is safe to say that priorities have felt re-aligned this past month, things that would have mattered urgently just a few weeks ago suddenly...just don't anymore.  The week of the bombings felt like five days filled with an eclectic mix of adrenaline, fear, sadness, remorse, anger, strength, goodness, hope, and love pumping through all of us - within this city, this country. And in a strange way the week after was almost more difficult for me as it was only in the days that followed April 19th, with one suspect dead and the other finally - gratefully - arrested that I allowed myself to process all that had just occurred in the places where I walk, I breathe, I work, I reside, I live.    

So I had to take a few days to let my brain and my heart sort a lot of things out. I suppose it's an act of knowing myself, or hell, maybe it's just a sign of maturity that I knew I needed to catch my breath, both literally and figuratively, before I sat down to write again.  Do you know how, when you're exhausted, nothing seems to make sense?  Or is fair?  And the tiniest, most insignificant thing - these people, in this parking lot!  Why can't anyone put away their stupid grocery carts! - is so totally overwhelming that you're almost in tears over a goddamn metal grocery cart?

Yeah.  That's sort of how I was starting to feel.

But then I took a breath.  And then I took another.  And another after that, until I started to feel like I was actually catching that breath.

By now I've slept in my own bed for several days in a row, without a suitcase tossed on the floor beside me, ready to be unpacked and packed over the next 24 hours.  This past weekend I was finally able to catch up on some much needed, deep, restful sleep. I saw some friends I missed, friends I was overdue to see.  I wandered around this beloved, beautiful city of mine with a renewed appreciation and adoration. I did yoga.  I ran.  I spoke with my Mom, remembered again how I am always comforted by her voice, by the simple way she calls me "Kel" in a way that no one else on this entire vast planet will ever be able to duplicate.

Boylston Street re-opened, as did Copley Square.  Life was breathed back into the Back Bay, and Bostonians kept looking at one another in the eye, kept acknowledging one another.  Things felt - not back to normal - (do you ever go back to normal?) but they somehow began to feel more tangible.  Stronger.  More solidified.  And suddenly, slowly but surely, things started to make sense again.  Or, really, they didn't at all...but at least the fact that they didn't - some things never will - wasn't bothering me quiet as much as it had been.  

Australia has long been a distant dream of mine, one I conjured up as a teenager in a bookstore, but never quite took seriously until this past year or so, when suddenly - amazingly - it dawned on me that a trip to the other side of the world was actually, totally, completely within my power.  If I wanted it bad enough, I'd figure out a way to make it happen.  One of my closest friends and I made a pact last summer, when she had one year of grad school under her belt and another one to go, that we would take a dream vacation together once she finished school.  The single parameter we set was that we would travel to a place neither of us had ever been.

Somehow, from there - and maybe it was that bottle of Australian Sauvignon Blanc we'd order at dinner that night when we first started to hatch our crazy plan - Australia landed on the tippy top of our potential trip menu...and never left.

Australia isn't cheap or exactly easy to get to.  It's a hell of a long way away from home and we're going to log a lot of hours in a tin can flying at 30,000 feet to get there.  But here's the thing.  Maybe I've buried the lead, maybe no one is left even reading this far into this post.  However, if you are, I'd proudly like to tell you, goofy, shell-shocked grin on my face and all, that today, May 7th 2013, I plunked down a chunk of money and I bought myself a round trip ticket to Sydney, Australia.

Sydney.

Flipping.

Australia.

On the other side of the world.

In less than a month.

What's the perfect word here?  Ecstatic?  Amazed?  Grateful? I'm not sure I've found the right verb to describe my current state of elation.  To say that I'm excited doesn't even begin...

The feeling I would like to take with me right now, the one I want to carry around like a glowing little gem right near my heart, is that overwhelming combination of amazement and disbelief when you finally pull a trigger on something you've long dreamed of.  As my friend - and future AU travel buddy - said over a text message this afternoon..."It's that moment when everything shifts from a maybe, a potential, and becomes REAL."