The challenge of goodbye

Goodbye is one of the hardest things to say to anyone in your life. As we grow older, there are many types of goodbyes we have to go through, some harder, more permanent than others. On occasion though, the inability to say goodbye has more to do with lack of time and the complexity of things than anything else.

I'm working on my 3rd month away from Puerto Rico and people are still finding out that I left the Island to try my hand at several new things. The final days before leaving weren't the most pleasant, but not because it was hard to leave home and family... that's come along later. It was hard because moving from one place to another isn't exactly simple, with the exception of two offices in Puerto Rico, the ACAA and the local Police force, who were commendable in their tact, professionalism, and speed. Apart from these two offices, everyone else made the process pretty hard and unpleasant to put it lightly.

Throughout the ordeal of moving my car to the states (which I do not recommend after the difficulty of this process) and trying to finalize several steps of the moving process, the date to leave was upon me... and I hadn't said goodbye to most of the people in my life or finished doing many things. (If you think you have everything sorted, think again. There's always something else.)

Hindsight is 20/20 and of course now I'm aware of several things I could have done different... and a lot of that sunk in as my plane departed to the states. A lot of people wanted to say goodbye and I honestly wonder if part of me just preferred to leave without saying goodbye, because it is in fact very hard.

My time in the states is just starting and I will definitely be commenting on several things of this experience. I've been blessed to find myself in the company of kind people who have been so helpful and so considerate with me and my wife. The people in the state of Georgia have also been very friendly all around and I'm impressed at truly experiencing southern hospitality.

Now that I'm settling in, the missing is starting to hit, where you find yourself enjoying so many things but missing just as many from home, because, well it's home. Some people have asked me how I'm faring in my new home and the best way I can describe it is that it's home away from home. The apartment starts feeling like home, the people start feeling like home, but nothing and no one can replace that one true home.

I could move to Japan, I could travel the world, I could explore outer space, and home will always be a tiny Island in the Atlantic, with the Caribbean sea beneath it, that lives eternally in summer, that has issues, that has problems, but that is home. 

So maybe it's not that I'm bad at saying goodbyes... maybe I just don't feel the need to say goodbye, because a piece of home will always be within, wherever I go.

More to come, but for now...

Peace, love, and maki rolls