el crispito

In some ways, this prevents much sad nostalgia about leaving, as we simply don't have much time to think about anything but making sure we have everything together and making it to the departure stop on time. Yet that also keeps us from being able to reflect on what is actually going on and have some final appreciation for this place that's been our home for our lives up to this point. After this, the United States will be a place we read about in the newspaper, hear about on the radio or have plans to visit like tourists. We'll not talk about "going home" and have it mean a trip to another state. Within 24 hours, we will call a new place home in which we do not yet even have "permanent" accomodations.

I try to be sad about it, or at least a little sentimental, but it just isn't happening. Perhaps I'm too caught up in the last minute things we have to get done first or maybe it has not hit yet that we are really doing it. But honestly, I think I just don't care. Apart from cosmetic details, I do not think that there is much difference. We don't have a home here, we don't have a home there. People are prejudiced against us there, but they're also prejudiced against us here, although the reasons are quite different. It's true that we leave behind a lot of friends, but they've got their own lives and are busy folks. We didn't really get to see them all that much anyway. Moving on is certainly overdue for us, and perhaps that's why it feels like ties to here are not all that strong.

It's time to go through to repack and inventory what we have in which bags. The whole trip we've frantically searched for something and only found it in the last bag we go through. We have agreed that it would be best if we have a master list that documented where each item is that we have with us, so when we freak out and wonder if we remembered to pack such-and-such from the last hotel, we can merely check the list.

One possible change in plans has given us a bit of extra free time to prepare in advance for our departure, and possibly lessen the chaotic last-minute check-out. We thought that we were going to be hanging out with our friends here tonight, but it turns out that one is feeling under the weather and the other is, as usual, late. Forty minutes late at this point, so I'm going to go take advantage of this lull in the schedule to get a jump on things. Maybe he'll show up to say good-bye or maybe we'll just get a phone call. We might get the chance to video chat one last time with a friend in Los Angeles before we hit the sack.

And thus ends our California odyssey.