Apprehensions? maybe Nostalgia?

It's Monday.  Very soon to be Tuesday.  Tomorrow's agenda includes an early morning and a full day of packing and preparations, phone calls, and other endless odds and ends, which keep nagging in the back of my mind.  I feel like I have so much to be doing and thinking about right now, that 'nothing' is just about all that my mind can muster in response.  So, here I sit.  Thinking of the endless connections and transfers and flights that have to be made, the laborious papers that will need filling out and signing, and the overly bureaucratic and critical hands that they must go through.  I keep thinking about all of the lasts.  For instance, I just sat in my car for the "last time."  Earlier today, I left Darbyville for the "last time."   Today I ate Real American Homemade Buffalo Wings for the very last time.  I saw a lot of people today for the last time as well.  Lots of hugs, lots of nostalgia.... ugh, and it is at times like this that nostalgia is the last thing that you want going through your mind.   Nostalgia is that annoying feeling that makes you start thinking, and remembering.  It makes big changes, like moving to the exact opposite corner of the world, a lot harder than you would like them to be. 

Nostalgia makes you want to flip through baby books, and dig out your old childhood blanket from deep within the "forgotten corner" of the closet.  It's a perfect killer for one's sense of adventure and excitement... makes you want to hang stockings, light the fireplace, and play old Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby Albums.   

This month, needless to say, was a month of murderous nostalgia.  My Mom graduated with two B.A.'s, after 30-some years of waiting.   My Sister finished High School and Graduated.  At Her graduation party, along with meeting family and old friends, she showed these horribly beautiful, old pictures of when we were little.  One picture actually featured me holding Leah as a baby beside the Christmas tree in our old house, we were both covered with the blanket that my Grandma Davis gave me when I was about 8, a blanket which I (slightly ashamedly) still use to this day, and will probably have to leave behind when I head out the the Philippines.   Grandma Crawford was also over this weekend, and she, just in herself has this uncanny knack for fabricating nostalgia out of thin air.  She told everything there was to know about everyone in my extended family, and shared all of the "remember whens" that made my mind jump back to the early '90's when learning long-division was the biggest of my trials.   Church today brought lots of hugs and goodbyes, and even tears from parents, which didn't help me out in the slightest. 

  So, how do I feel?  "Excited", is how I usually respond to that question.   But honestly, although I AM excited (if not even giddy) I think more accurately, rather than, "excited",  I think maybe "bludgeoned with nostalgia and emotion" would be more fitting.  Am I apprehensive?  Maybe only a little.  I certainly would be much more, if I didn't sense, with the assurance that I do, that this is the step that the Lord wants me to take.  I keep moving forward, and I'm excited... I know that I am... I just don't feel it clearly yet.  I will... I think.  Once I say my final goodbyes, walk through security, and watch that Airlock seal on that 757 tomorrow, I think I will be very excited.