It's 9:30pm and I'm almost packed. I'm leaving in the morning on a road trip to Florida. The van has been jump-started, new batteried, vacuumed and filled. The cat has a sweet little old lady to visit and feed her. All other responsibilities are done, other than the usual paperwork that I'm bringing although I will probably ignore it all. 

This is a vacation though, true enough. I will have three days on St. Augustine beach but it's going to be chilly.  It won't warm up til I get to Tampa, then I'll turn around and go back north, first to visit some friends in North Florida, and finally to hit Atlanta for a few days. The highlight in Atlanta? We're eating at Kevin's restaurant (if you have to ask who Kevin is, it won't matter to you anyway). 

It's also a sentimental journey. I have so much baggage along this road, and most of it is still weighing me down.

My first stop is in Jacksonville, where I grew up. I will have dinner with Sharon tomorrow night (the fun part of the trip!). She made the journey up to Asheville to be with me at my first Guild fair in October, but it was too brief. I am so looking forward to being able to relax and talk to her at length this time!

 The next morning I'm going to cruise my old neighborhood and check out the house I lived in from 7th grade til after college, the one that my mother threw my father out of, the one my mother lived in til she died of cancer 10 years ago. I haven't been back since. I'm hoping to sneak back in the backyard to stand in the place in the yard where we buried her ashes. She loved that house. She'll always be there. I have to make that stop, for Mom.  

This is the street view on Google Map. I don't know, it feels a little creepy to check out my old house this way.  It doesn't look much different. 

Then, I'll drive down to St. Augustine, where I have a reservation at Anastasia Island State Park.  The last time I was in St Augustine, in 2004, it was T__ and me camping in our Airstream. It was New Years then, and he bought me a hand-sewn coat from a shop and he titled the photo he took "Pretty Leslie." I almost brought the coat on this trip - it's perfect for a Florida winter, but my heart just broke to think of wearing it there again. No, I can't do that to myself.  One of my sisters will be meeting me there, which will be good; hopefully she'll distract me from my sadder moments.  

On Thursday I'm driving down to Tampa, where I lived for a little over a year, hoping that T__ and I could get back together. You would think that I wouldn't be caught dead there again, but I am drawn to be there, to visit the two houses where I lived, to walk down Bayshore again, remembering the space of impossible hope that I lived in then. I believed, I really believed, it would turn out all right.  Why I have to do this, I'm not sure. I'm only staying a day. I don't want to wallow, just to witness. 

I do have things to do there - dropping off some of T__'s last belongings, meeting up with some friends I made teaching felting. Maybe Michael or Mission or someone in the area from OS to have a beer with. It will go by fast.

Then I'm going to Madison Florida, up in the panhandle. An artist couple who were family friends of Todd's, who became my allies during the year of limbo. She has had a recurrence of breast cancer. He is giving up his painting for a teaching job to keep insurance for her. I may only stay an hour. More sadness, more inexorable change. 

 When I cross the Florida state line, I will probably breathe a sigh of relief. But Atlanta is where I lived for the last 5 years with T__, and I can't stay there long either. Too familiar, too painful. 

I thought this would be a vacation, but it seems I have unfinished business. A little like time traveling back to see who I was then, who I am now.  

When I get back, I have to look for a job, T__ said. Yes, the time for security is at an end.   I am joining all of you in that most familiar place these days. Insurance ends in 3 months. I am supposed to be employed, with benefits by then, he says. (Ha!)

I'll probably post on the way.