I have a list.

It’s a todo list.

It’s not full of particularly interesting or fun things.   Mostly just people to call, things to pick up, that sort of thing.  Mundane things.  Pick up milk and a loaf of bread kind of things.  Nor is it the shortest or longest list I’ve ever written.  I don’t write lists often – just for those times when I find I can’t keep all the things I need to do for specific event or occasion in my head.  You know, brain gets a bit too full, a bit too scattered, and sometimes a list helps keep it all together.

But this list…this list is different.  This list is unique, for all that it resides in the place many other lists have been before.  Because I’ve never had a list on my kitchen white board which made my heart stop a little bit every time I look at it.  Or missed a beat.  Or made my breath catch in my throat.

This list is a harbinger of events to come.  The tasks on this list are fashioned out of portent.  It heralds the impending arrival of my impending departure to a place far, far away for longer than I have been away from any place I’ve ever called home.

And sometimes, when I look at that list, it says to me “Girl, you are fucking crazy.” (Intentional withholding of exclamation mark.)  It says “This is a crazy crackbrained idea and the fact that I’ve taken it this far is pretty insane.  You’re only doing this because you talked so damn much about it that you’d look like a fool if you didn’t!”

But every once in a while, that list sits there, and is quiet, and just…pulses.  And the sound that comes off that list, the feelings that I feel when I look at that list during those moments – those are filled with possibility.  Pure kinetic potential.  Pure energy.

I am leaving.