I think this process will get easier as time goes on. Right now, it's still nowhere near that. Of all the conversations I've had in the past month, the one I've referred back to the most in my mind has been Karen's. She mentioned something that no one else brought up, something that has been truer than I expected at the time. The decision to go requires a mourning period. You're either going to do it after you've left, when the newness hits you all at once, or you're going to do it before you leave.

After fewer than four hours of sleep, I was on the road again. I'd been shaken awake with a jolt, and I was dressed and charging headlong into Brian and Suzan's kitchen before I'd really awakened. We headed out, Jake and Chris and I, in the middle of one of the worst thunderstorms I've ever driven through. Brian and Suzan's road more closely resembled a moat, and getting to I-20 represented a difficult tightrope balance of caution and insanity.