Leaving Atlanta (redux)

Just before we left Atlanta for good in 2017, I found myself standing in the kitchen, convulsing from ‘the tornado of change that is tearing through my life,’ a phrase I'd bracketed in quotes in my journal ... Am I quoting someone? Myself? Who knows.

And then:

"I am writing on a kitchen counter that's cluttered with all the things that were removed from end tables that have also since been removed – the house is empty and I think we are, too. 

"We are for all intents and purposes departed – most of the goodbyes have already been said, personal effects carted away – but we are lingering in a skeleton of a home so we can clean a bit. 

"Stranger to think I don’t like goodbyes since with all of these cross-country moves, I’m saying them much more often than the average person.

"How do I feel? Well, I am listening to Steve Winwood’s album 'Cigano.'"

Which meant the song that should be called "What My Father Said" on repeat in the car. My go-to album when I want to indulge way too much feeling.

"And I dipped into Van Morrison yesterday (“St. Dominic’s Preview”)..."

That song embodies such intense longing for me and I don't even know why. Van Morrison and Bruce Springsteen have that uncanny ability to make me long for a past that's not mine. I've probably mangled the meaning but I imagine the song title to refer to a place in Belfast, where Van was born, or at the least somewhere in Van's childhood that he couldn't forget even if memories could be stomped to death.

"...so I am courting the ache," I reported to my journal. "Plus all the reporting for Delta Sky magazine and the AJC personal journeys essay. 

"I am stewing in nostalgia, by choice, as if to throw a bucket of cold water on my face: You’re leaving, you’re leaving, you’re really doing it."

We really did it. We really left Atlanta, after two tours of duty totaling 12 years. "Homeward we go. Toward something as yet undefined but which we think will mitigate the fact that it’s been 'all downhill' since we left Florence, so many years ago."

See a previous post for how it initially worked out ("Is walking the cure?"). Then look at every post from the last three years to come to a final conclusion.

The move was good. But as I concluded when I wrote the "Personal Journeys" essay piece for the AJC, while the decision we made was a good one – an investment in Leo’s future and in the lives of other people we love,  the takeaway perhaps was this: "Adulthood means doing the right thing even though it doesn’t feel right – and won’t feel right for a very long time."

-30-