birdsong

I took a rare spontaneous day off today, to enjoy the weather and the parade downtown with Elise, and also so Danny could spend some time with his brother who is visiting from Fargo. As Elise and I walked through the grand old downtown neighborhoods, I felt such pure happiness and joy as the sun warmed us (78 degrees today!) and a southerly breeze blew our hair around. Birds were singing all over the place. I marveled at Lawrence's beauty, with all the hills and the gorgeous buildings of the University looming high above on said hills.

It's a beautiful, special city. Its been my home now for nearly 14 years, and I just realized, literally a minute ago, that whereas I thought I was mentally ready to move because I had divested myself of my previous community here in Lawrence, I've already started building a new community, and Lawrence is my home. The old community doesn't fit into my life anymore anyway, so I probably would have drifted away from those people eventually. I don't want to start over again. At least I know a lot of people in Topeka already, by virtue of working there.

I hear Elise waking up, so I should wrap this up. Nutshell: I'm not ready to leave, and am having trouble reconciling these feelings.