One week from today, the BF and I will board a one-way flight to Atlanta.

Getting ready to leave occurs on so many levels and in as many ways.  There’s the emotional reconciliation involved in saying goodbye to the city where God brought me and did some major work on who I am, what I believe, how I live.  I grew up here.  After I finished twenty-plus years of formal education, I moved to New York and began to really learn: about how little I already knew, about how I’d been trying to make God and others in my own image, about how different real life looks than what I’d planned.  He used this city to polish away all the false stuff I decorated myself with before I discovered my real identity.  I must say, New York is one hell of an exfoliant.

So there are the tears and the prayers and the faith that go into letting go of the major construction site of my life while trusting that everything that made New York home for five years will somehow travel with me.  It’s part of me now.  Then there is the physical side of letting go: eating at our favorite restaurants one last time, pounding the pavement of my favorite neighborhoods for a final glimpse, dinners and parties with friends who will, starting next week, be a thousand miles away.

I have Mondays off, and today was my last full Monday here, my last chance to cover the terrain on my own.  And New York did not disappoint.  I left the gym and took the downtown 6 to Spring Street and walked around Soho.  The sun was bright and there was an edge of chill to the air that may have been what kept the streets (mercifully) uncrowded.  I went to Bloomingdale’s and as I was leaving, a guy raced through the entrance and out onto Broadway with the security dude charging after him.  Not much turns heads in New York, but all eyes were on this cop-and-robber duo as they turned and headed south.  I don’t know what happened, but I do love that the guy in a suit who gently greeted me when I entered the store didn’t hesitate to haul ass and attempt to take down that little thief.  Then I walked north past Madison Square Park, where a bagpiper was playing, and a couple of blocks west to stalk the Something Borrowed set.  Lots of trailers, no actors–boo.  I headed up Fifth and into Lord and Taylor, where I found my bombass wedding shoes.  Then I went to Gristede’s to pick up some cookie dough and was rudely cut in front of in line.  Five years ago, I would have been too timid to protest.  Today, some New York attitude and a carefully-placed Excuuuuse me? (head roll included) went a long way.  A lot has changed.

This morning I went through my clothes and filled a garbage bag with tax-deductible gifts for the thrift store on Third.  I usually have to go through a couple of rounds of this garment winnowing–I have a hard time letting go.  Then I look at the green pants and ask myself, “Really?  Do you really think you’ll go to a St. Patrick’s Day party where these would be perfect?” and I toss them. At some point I usually find inspiration in the thought that where I am going, there are malls and I will actually be paid for working so what I’m doing is not just getting rid of things, but making room for prettier things.  And so the garbage bag begins to fill.

Not getting rid, but making room.  Here’s to doing that in a week.