As restless as I tend to be, it's still harder than I'd like to admit to leave a place behind. Technically, I should be past New York by now; I was supposed to meet up with an old teacher and a friend in New Hampshire this morning, then start the drive to Raleigh. They had to cancel, so I decided to spend the early morning resting and packing instead, more leisurely - and found that once I sat down and looked around... there was a lot I didn't want to just rip away and leave behind. Packing, usually a hurried 30-minute affair of shoving things haphazardly into bags, turned into a more methodical slow pick through all the things I'm leaving behind.

I'll have one last shot to bring some of it back on my second trip to Raleigh, but I find myself mentally triaging again - do I want to keep my high school math notes? Yes and no. How much do I need? Not much. How much do I have? More than I need. How much do I want? I... have no idea. Part of me wants to settle down and have a place stable enough to get a real piano, even a beat-up old upright like Hector (which I got for free my freshman year of college), stock the fridge with more food than I can eat in a week and not have to wonder if it'll spoil while I'm away. Part of me wants a carry-on luggage, a laptop backpack, and a travel guitar, and... that's it. I am young and stupid, and so the second part is bigger, stronger, faster, and wins out every time.

I have generally made it a policy not to regret any decisions (nor to make decisions I'll regret), so it's not a problem. I'll be hopping around for work and school and stuff anyway - all these things I've waited my entire life to do - and I do love seeing the world. I still get dizzy with the prospect of all that unexpected freedom (it's still unexpected, even after a year or three or seven or ten depending on when you start counting), and I don't think that's going to go away anytime soon.

And my bass and guitar and Ian's electric mandolin and my last two suitcases (one for clothes, one for everything else) aren't yet in the car. What am I doing? I should put things in the bags, put bags in the car, and hit the road. I love night driving; it's quiet, peaceful, and requires a working rear license plate light (yeah, going to fix that shortly).

Quiet night, open road, long stretches of highway and thinking. My mind will settle down again once I'm behind the wheel.