Onward and Outward

Within the next few hours, I will be departing for Phoenix.

The last week has been busy. I've been packing, moving boxes around, cleaning, going through drawers and storage containers and following old roads down memory lane. Some of the memories have been good, others remind me of the past and people that I've cut myself from. My mind is constantly a flurry of activity, looking at everything and how it fits together, analyzing myself and my place within the world.

In this moment, I feel like I'm standing on the precipice of something. A chapter of my life is closing, as I give up my place of living, and herd the majority of my belongings into a 5x7 storage unit, as this room looks less and less like it belongs to me as my things leave it- an empty shell, a place of potential for someone else to take my place here. This is no longer my home, but that doesn't scare me. Somehow it instead gives me hope.

I'll have a lot of time to think about where I'm going and what I'm doing, while I'm traveling. The desert has always been a place of healing for me, a place for new beginnings. The pacific northwest with its towering trees, forests lined with moss and ferns, whispering creeks, and pounding waterfalls is my home...but the desert is where I go to be reborn.

I have some work booked out that way already, and hope to have more soon as well. I expect to be arriving on the 8th, barring any issues with the van I'll be traveling in, or any issues crossing the Mojave. Fingers crossed that everything will go as planned there.

I'll likely have a lot of free time on my hands, so if anyone who reads this happens to be in the Phoenix area, hit me up and lets meet for coffee or something.

For once I feel like I'm going towards something instead of running away from something else. I'm running towards my stability, a stronger foundation, my future... and when I return to Washington,  I'll have the resources I need to get a place for my love and I, and to bring him here at last. I'm looking at the possibility of moving to Tacoma- a nice middle ground between Olympia and Seattle, as well as the home of one of the photo studios I frequently work at already.

So when I pack the last of my things away, and turn my back on this place I've called home since September, it won't be with regret. It will be silent, with purpose, and a smile of knowing for the future that I will create with my Will and my own two hands.