Maine

Next weekend is my last weekend in Boston ~ as an official resident. I want to be sure and make the most of it but sometimes when you put too much pressure on making the most of it, it ends up sucking the joy out of it. So, I've been wrestling with just keeping it normal and not doing anything special and wanting to do something "one more time".

I've pretty much decided that I'd like to see Maine "one more time". It was the first place I lived/visited in New England back in like 98 or 99 when I lived there for 6 months during my grad school internship. I've always held it a bit in awe (does that make sense?) No matter how many times I visit Nubble Light or Drake's Island I get that same "in awe" feeling. I love driving through the small towns, looking at all the cute shops, seeing the ocean.

When I moved to Maine it was the first time I was ever really on my own. I didn't know a soul, my family was hours away, my friends were all in KY and I was pretty much left to my own devices. The people I worked with and my landlord and her son were my surrogate family and friends. I spent a lot of time on my own visiting Nubble and the beaches in the area - even though it was the middle of winter and even though sometimes it was lonely it was so beautiful that I really didn't mind the cold or the lonely.

In a lot of ways my situation now is similar to my situation then. I started out on my own more or less and through Providence found another surrogate family of friends. I've been back to Maine only 3 or 4 times in the year and a half that I've lived here. One of those was a trip on my own one Saturday several months ago. I wanted to visit the lighthouse and the beach ~ it was cold and a bit lonely but it was so beautiful and I really didn't mind the cold or the lonely.

I wish I had made a few more visits but time gets away and there will always be another weekend it seems but here I am almost out of New England weekends. So I think I'm making the right decision in heading to Maine on Saturday as it seems appropriate to say farewell for now to one of my favorite places.