Due to RC’s powerful work connections with the taco-laden and financially astute, along with college friendships that survived binge-drinking and bad fashion, The Husband and I were invited to attend the Paul Simon concert on Saturday night with two of our favorite couples. We all met at Canoe, a fancy restaurant on the Chattahoochee River, for dinner beforehand, then headed in bumper-to-bumper traffic to Chastain Park Ampitheater. Our prime seats, located on ground-level in row 7 of the table-filled area near the stage, placed us in the middle of hundreds of fans whose diversity was represented more by age range than ethnicity. We pulled out our snacks–coolers of beer, bag of jelly bellies, zip-loc of beef jerky–and turned our chairs toward Paul as he strummed and sang. Surrounded as we were by tables of wine and gourmet platters, JB tried to class up the joint with a wedge of brie, only to see it mauled with beer cans once the sun went down.

We’ve known each other way too long to start acting classy now.

With Paul belting out favorites like “The Only Living Boy in New York,” “Sound of Silence,” and “Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes,” and strawberry cheesecake flavor sticking to my teeth, I practiced my gratitude (easy to do with free concert tickets and good music, but still): a table full of friends who haven’t given up on me for fifteen years, a husband who drops seamlessly into those age-old relationships and embraces them alongside me. It almost made up for Paul’s omission of “Graceland,” “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard,” and “You Can Call Me Al.” (Hope began to run out when, at 9:45 pm, Paul announced that it was getting late.)

And tonight, following that weekend reminder of time-tested friendship and astronomical comfort levels, TH and I will board a plane and reverse-route the trip we took this time last year as we headed south to our new life. We will be revisiting what is now the old one, landing at LaGuardia (ostensibly for my work meeting, but let’s be honest–there will be more play than work, more cupcakes than conferences). We will visit burger joints and rooftop bars, Alta and Rare and Stanton Social and the Standard Grill. We will be greeted by faces we’ve missed, hear voices that helped narrate a most important part of our story. We’ll cover by foot and nausea-inducing cabs the terrain that made up multiple years. We will eat and drink and spend way too much money. We’ll be reminded of how blessed we are to have multiple places deserving of the name home.

And I, with each pavement-pounding step, will have a moment to express profound gratitude for a plan beyond what I ever imagined.