here goes

Yet another transition waits for me at the end of this coming week: moving into a rental house. 

I have been living in the south during the college term for a while now, but this is the first time that there isn't a sure time for me to return and live in my childhood home, or my home state.

Each transition, from high school to college, to adding a first job, to moving out, has felt strange. 

I am not stepping out into the middle of nowhere. 

Many of my material things are remaining here in my beloved Pacific Northwest, and I am sure of open arms whenever I return. 

Yet, there is a different twinge in this leaving though. I will no longer be able to bask in the knowledge that I understand the place I live in from long experience.

I will be labeling another place "home" in my address book. 

I will have to tease out the secrets of new and familiar places. No more relying on the base of understanding this, my home city...of knowing how to get around, and feeling settled. So here goes.