Time, as always, has flown by too fast and in less than a week I will no longer be in Maine. The past few weeks have been filled with hours of packing, planning, and visits with my favorite people and places one last time. I have moments of elation and excitement about the changes I'm about to face and the adventures they will bring, and then there are mornings I wake up filled with such a deep homesickness for Maine that tears haunt each breath until I close my eyes that night. Today has been one such day and tonight the devastating reality of what's coming suddenly became too much to bear and those threatening tears finally fell.

I still have no doubt that my choice to go is the right one, but when I think of all that I'm about to leave behind I become weak, sapped of my strength. In mere days I will no longer be able sit by the brick fireplace of my library, walk through the leaf laced paths of the Bowdoin quad, or sip the dark perfection that is God of Thunder coffee.Worse, in mere days I will be saying goodbye to some of the most wonderful people I have ever known, people who I care about deeply, without any promise or certainty that I will ever see them again. It's a knowledge that cuts through my heart like fire causing my courage to falter and self-doubt to flourish.

Today was a beautiful bright autumn day, but yesterday the rain fell fast and steady. As I enjoyed one last cup of coffee at the library I let my gaze drift out of the gray rain soaked windows and through them these words came

It's raining outside, softly tragic

 Drops transform first to mist then to magic

An echoing song full of goodbye

  A truth now so near it's hard not to cry

I walk up and down this familiar old street

 letting sky’s falling whispers kiss my face, soak my feet

The store fronts, the restaurants, the ruby tipped trees

  there's so much I love here, so much left to see

And the people whose smiles brought me strength, gave me hope

with their welcoming kindness I became one of their own 

This place is my comfort, my happiness, my home

My heart's filled with sadness, it doesn't want to let go

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