Regardless of how many times I pack for a trip, I never learn. From one day, to two weeks, and now for four months, my suitcase zippers and I continue to defy reason. I feel like I’ve gone against the lesser known cousin of the law of gravity known as the law of suitcases-have-a-set-amount-of-items-they-can-contain. But that law does not to apply me! Not today, not in this house. At 4 P.M. this afternoon, all of the clothes and shoes in the picture below were successfully contained into one checked back and one carry-on.

Leading up to my departure tomorrow, my head has felt a lot like my suitcase. Like the shirts that keep magically appearing on my packing pile, my to-do list continues to get longer, and I can feel the zippers in my head struggling to keep everything in place. This feeling has made it hard for me to be present. Its almost like I’ve been in two places at once: on the one hand, I’m at my friend’s birthday party, but on the other hand, and at the very same time, I see myself boarding the plane to embark on the greatest adventure of my life. I’m neither here nor there; I’m stuck in an in-between state where I can’t appreciate the moment at hand without worrying about the moment ahead. 

But today, driving down the main street of my town, I finally felt the moment at hand. The trees lining the sidewalk of main street are in their prime, especially when the sun filters through their giant leaves at dusk. During this golden hour, my entire village seems to come alive, almost as I live in my own little movie set where every detail, down to the last brick, shines with intention and care. I love this town and the people in it, and I’ve never witnessed a season without seeing it through the trees on main street. But today I realized that will be no more: the next time I drive through my town at dusk, the trees will be empty. The sun will be chilly and brief, and the autumn will have come and gone without me to see it. 

And as my to-do list keeps getting longer, I add my entire town to my packing list, and even though everything is full, I keep expanding, pushing my suitcase zippers and memory until the comfort of my tiny town bridges all the way across the Atlantic. But that’s not how this works. When I return four months from now to find my town just as it has been every other December, it will feel different. Even the clothes I pack in my suitcase will feel different, because the experiences I have in them will be exciting and fundamentally formative. But luckily the heart doesn’t run out of zipper space.