Leaving in a Week

"Do you ever miss having a normal life?"

This was the question put to me by my brother's girlfriend, Wyndi, and I wasn't sure how to take it. I liked it for the way it made me feel sexy and daring, like the kind of person who picks up and goes and doesn't look back and.... But none of that really sounds like me.  I don't just pick up and go. Things could go either way in my constant internal tug of war between a desire, a need, to have things the way they always have been on the one hand, and...something... boredom? (probably)...a spirit of adventure?(I hope)... pulling me away from what I've seen to find the things I haven't. My life feels extraordinary from the inside, but I don't assume it looks that way to everyone, or even anyone. But it's my own, and I love it.

 So, Wyndi, here's what you need to know: Yesterday was the first day of autumn. No one has noticed, and no one has officially called it yet, so I'm going to. The dew point was lower, the air less humid, something. Maybe it was the light. But something about this time of year forcibly reminds me that time is barreling forward, a torrent that can't be refused and a current that won't let me keep my feet. It's a time of year that makes me antsy and blue, and when that feeling comes upon me, I have to start moving. One day, I'll take an honest look within to determine the source of the creeping despondency that keeps my fingers drumming nervously on whatever when I'm standing still and my heart burning for something to break the routine, but not today.

I'm leaving in less than one week; moving to a small city of 19,000 or so called Royan, in the Charente-Maritime département of France. It is less than a half-hour by train from where I used to live in Saintes, on the ocean - well, at the mouth of the Gironde Estuary, anyway. I've been there a few times, and I'm glad I'll be living there. I have a lot to get done this week, and a lot on my mind. But I do not miss any other life I could be having, except for one.