My alarm wakes me up at 6 AM. Actually that's a lie. I haven't really slept. For more than a week. The reality of the situation has been trying to catch up to me, but I've always been able to outrace it by keeping my mind on moving logistics. Now that everything is falling into place, I'm starting to feel the sadness of moving. This has actually been a harder emotional move for me than the move from the bay area because I wasn't ready to leave. I keep reminding myself why I'm doing it, but it's hard not to be bummed. I'm leaving a bunch of hard-earned new friends and a promising new life behind. Is that bacon I smell cookin in the kitchen? Damn, Soaps. You're not making this easy for me at all :(

Soaps makes good on her vow to get me to the airport. I'm doing my best to hold it together, the sleep deprivation throwing me all out of whack. But I'm not on the plane yet, it's not safe yet, I can't break down yet. After profusely thanking her for her help, I can only manage a robotlike "I'll see you soon". I do my best to smile and wave goodbye.

I sleepwalk through checkin and security. I'm relieved to hear that my heavy suitcase is only 16 lbs over the 50lb limit, meaning all I have to do is pay a $25 overweight fee. Over 70 lbs and I wouldn't be able to check it in at all. Phew. Also security pulls me aside and asks me exactly why I had a suspicious container containing about 6 pounds of coins.

I get on my flight, and I reflect on what I've just done. Three weeks from the time I made up my mind to move was all it took. It took me three months to move out of San Francisco, so it looks like I'm getting better at this. I laugh and think to myself "For my next move, I should be able to pick up and move in three days". For the next 5 hours, I put my head down in my hands and finally let myself mourn giving up human contact with every friend I've ever had.

I touch down in Maui, greeted by my folks. I laugh because my dad is busy singing and playing his ukelele for complete strangers. I sneak up on them and they re-start the song for me. They welcome me and take me straight home for a good meal. My mom was proud to show me that she had unpacked my clothes, washed everything, and hung and folded everything in my closet sorted by color. So this is what the prodigal son felt like. Looks like this is the start of another chapter.

t - 0 days.

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