'Cause I Don't Want to Go, But It's Time to Leave.

This is my last morning in my treehouse.  I'm writing this from my beloved porch, as I sip the iced coffee I walked down the street to get (coffee pot is all packed up) as soon as my local coffee shop opened.  I rose at dawn this morning, my internal clock waking me of its own accord, allowing me to watch one last sunrise from my bedroom, granting me one more quiet peaceful morning on my porch before the world wakes up.

There are cardboard boxes everywhere you turn, to move from room to room is like navigating a brown maze.  Yesterday, as box after box was packed and piled it felt like my home was being dismantled bit by bit, box by box.  In a way, it felt like I was watching a movie in rewind, coming back to where I started.  After I showered the sweat and dirt and dust off of me last night and maneuvered my way through boxes to collapse in my bed I remembered so vividly the last (hot) day I moved in a decade ago.  How could ten years have passed by so quickly, for it feels like only yesterday.  I was surrounded by boxes then, I'm surrounded by boxes now, and in a handful of days I'll be surrounded by boxes in a new apartment. Except this time I'll be unpacking in a new city, on the island of Manhattan. (But that's another post entirely.)

For the last month in particular, after I officially signed my lease in New York, I have been doing my very best to soak up every tiny detail about my home, my current neighborhood, my dear Boston in general.  I want to sear everything I see and treasure - my walk to the T each morning, my favorite coffee shop stop on the way into the office, my stroll through Beacon Hill, sunsets on my porch, the golden hour cascading through my living room - onto my eyeballs.  For weeks I felt so afraid I'd forget something, not remember some detail that I love until one morning it dawned on me - just because I have to leave a place my memories do not.  I have not been back in the house I grew up in for almost twenty years after it was sold in 1999, and yet I can still clearly recall each and every room in that house; I know what it felt like to wake up in my bedroom to the sound of my Mom mowing the front yard, I remember where we put the Christmas tree every year, I can, even now, almost feel my bare feet on our back deck or running over the concrete to jump in our pool.  That's the thing about the moments we treasure, the ones we hold dear.  They never have to leave us; we can carry them in our hearts, always.

So while it still breaks my heart to leave this sweet treehouse, I know I will carry her with me no matter where I go next. I know I was always be able to tell stories of the decade I spent tucked up on the third floor of the most charming spot in Cambridge; I imagine thinking of the morning light in my bedroom or the sunsets in my kitchen will always make me smile. On Tuesday night, before my treehouse got packed up and dismantled, I poured myself a glass of rose and watched the sunset.  I flipped through the countless memories I have made here, running through each of them in my minds eye.  I silently toasted these last ten years, I thanked my treehouse.  She knows I have to go too, that it is not of my own volition but the landlord demands it.  I think she knows too that although it makes me terribly sad to say goodbye to my life here in #3L that it is time to take a leap, be bold, be brave.  I like to think my time here in this very special place made me all the more ready for all the adventures that lie ahead. 

And so this chapter in my sweet treehouse closes, my heart brimming with gratitude.  With each box I packed up a memory, a piece of this special place that I will carry for all of my days.