prone to wander

i hate endings. i hate goodbyes and last days and final episodes. i hate leaving places and i hate leaving people. i am a sucker and i cry every single time.

friday was the last day i spent in sucker creek/grouard. in the morning, as i was getting ready, lee came into my room with her little pink nightgown on, and offered me a set of airline cutlery as a going away present. so cute. i went to work for the day, and headed back to her house one last time to say goodbye. i had to finish packing up a bit, and she had to leave to help with family camp, but we hugged and cried and she kept saying, "you'll make it, my girl." i'm not exactly sure what "making it" entails, but it was nice to hear. i watched the simpsons, and then i left. my goodbyes to places are often characterized first by slows walks around, then long, sad gazes through the rearview mirror.

i will miss you, boreal forest. i will miss you, lesser slave lake. you too, my sunflowers. i will also miss the people: lee and meghan; the other museum staff; the staff of fountain tire and IGA and the leisure centre in high prairie, who i got to see fairly regularly.

i will miss being junior high-esque with meghan, getting creeped out and running away from the scary part of the museum; spying on the hot construction boys; trying to find excuses to go to high prairie; and being museum snobs, snickering about the ignorant masses who, for instance, think that buffalo live in alberta (buffalo live in asia and africa - we only have bison here).

anyway...

on my 4-hour drive back to edmonton, i realized that my distaste for endings is (unfortunately) coupled with an equal and opposite restlessness and need for change. the thought of full time jobs or living in the same place for more than about a year sends me into a low-grade panic attack. i am excited for my trip to guyana, but i am always so wary of how the beginning of one thing means the end of something else. often, that new beginning is healthier and better, and i know that, but i still just hate, hate, hate goodbyes.



tomorrow morning i'm off to capital health to get a million immunizations and malaria pills. cheers to sitting inside for three days, being sick from vaccinations! woo!