On the road...

Well - it has happened, the assistants are in their rightful places in Indiana and Mass. We had some amazing friends come over this weekend to help pack boxes, bleach things down and carry very heavy (and some fragile!) into moving trucks. Fueled by coffee and sheer will, we found ourselves actually moved out of the city. I won't lie, as I was driving a moving truck into the city at the crack of dawn and the sun started to rise over DC and the Washington Monument and Jefferson Memorial began to sparkle (like Edward Cullen!) I got a little teary. Okay - true fact, I cried a little. In my defense - I also cried a little when I got to my home state and saw the "Welcome!" sign. There were so many emotions running through us over the day - we started out sad to leave each other (again, after so brief a time together) but excited to get home and then as we left we realized with some epic anxiety that this officially meant we were leaving and meant we were going to Rwanda in six short weeks.

Now that I'm home, I'm moving in to a new bedroom in a house that I have never lived in. My parents moved while I was a senior in college, so I've never really had use for a bedroom here. But now - not only do I get to move all my stuff from DC into their house, I get to move the first 22 years of my life from one room to another, while infusing my DC life in to it. All the while, trying to remember what I really don't need, putting it into a clear plastic bin and storing it in my new closet - which is, by the way, the largest closet I have ever seen. The fun part about all of that is going through the wreckage of my entire adolescence and college life which is strewn through photos, tickets, nametags and passes, notebooks, journals, etc. I just found a journal that I kept when I was a summer camp counselor, the summer I fell in love for the first time. That will be fun to read one cold winter night.

The other exciting discovery was a set of china tea cups. There were six of them, all white with this beautiful little blue art on the side. I was in love with them and ran downstairs asking my mom where she got them and if I could have them. She said they had been my grandmothers and that I could wrap them up and keep them. I have never met my grandmother - she died before I was born, but I instantly felt a connection to her through these teacups that I knew I would love and that would grace whatever kitchen I found myself in next. It made me excited to feel close to her, excited to dip my toe into the pool of 'thinking-about-the-future' and made me excited to find other treasures buried amongst a room full of things.

Unfortunately, I didn't find anything else (yet - I'm about halfway done) as exciting as the antique tea cups, but I did find some old cross country pants from high school, my robe, jackets from all my old sports teams and my letterman's jacket. My mom got excited during the move and found photos from our family vacation to Disneyworld. My sister and brother had some of the most amazing photos in the pile. Seeing them so young and so happy was an awesome break to their current "teen angst" selves that we currently live with.

It's an exciting time for the assistants - we're making so much progress and are so close to touching down. Tomorrow one of us gets to substitute teach for the first time in her home state -- Jr. High Science - where she hears there is a very cute, young, new principal. Good things are happenin'!