Well...I’ve been avoiding this topic because I figured it would wind up being really looooong, take a looooong time to write, and be emotionally exhausting.
But hey, what the heck. I’m goin’ for it anyway:

Tonight is my last night as a Californian.
I’ve been here before. Leaving. Leaving home, leaving California, thinking it was for good.
This time though, I really think it is...and at the same time, I don’t really think so at all.

I’ve been wondering lately if I am a changeaholic.
If I am, it must have something to do with the fact that I grew up in the same house for 18 years, and now if I’m somewhere for more than 2, I start to get restless.

Anyway, I am just one giant paradox for that fact that:

I constantly create change.

and...

I HATE change.

Sometimes, I create change that I hate.
Sometimes I create change that is good for me, sometimes bad.
The point is, I make it happen.

On top of this, God has seen fit to add a lot of other major elements of surprise to my life, on a pretty consistent basis. More than a lot of other people I know.

In other words, something major is ALWAYS happening in my life, no matter who is instigating it.
I can honestly not think of one time where this isn’t true.

I want to believe that I am moving to Nashville with the best intentions.
That I am doing music with the best intentions.
That I am stepping on that plane tomorrow (today?) with some sort of stamp of approval from God and motives as pure as country is wide.

But I get the nagging feeling that I am only trying to avoid something.
Boredom.
Small town.
Being like everyone else.
Being a "mom" like other moms.
Being stuck and thinking the most exciting thing in my life that could happen is saving enough money to maybe someday buy a house.

I don’t think those things are horrible things to think, I think it’s cool to want adventure..I just want to be content even if my greatest adventure is being a mom and a wife.
Even though, if pressed I would say I think that the girls deserve a mom who is being the person God made her, even if that means we’re a family of little vagabonds.

The last 4 weeks have been the hardest, most emotional, most eventful weeks of my life.
So many things happened, and not just on top of each other, they happened simultaneously....
Losing a baby, packing a house, celebrating Christmas, moving to a temporary location, recording 10 songs in 2 weeks, saying goodbye to Josh for TWO weeks, being alone with the girls for TWO weeks, having a "quarter life crisis", saying goodbye FOREVER to the house I grew up in...and saying goodbye to my best friends and my family.

And now...now I’m about to get on a plane, which I’m terrified of anyway, and move 2000 miles away.

I haven’t cried very much about it.
I think it’s because my brain is trying to protect me, and it knows I just need to shut down and go into major denial.

At the same time, I don’t feel like I’m even connected to SLO that much anymore..there’s not much left of me there, and when I try to get nostalgic and think about leaving...it’s not the place I’ll miss at all.

But there are faces that will move me to tears and break my heart to be without.
There are friends that my arms will ache to hug and I will have to be satisfied with a phone I call, an email, or a chat now and then.

I know it is my choice...to walk on that plane tomorrow...and I realize that maybe my love for change is solely responsible for all the broken hearts.
But deep down...I know that’s not all...
I know that there is a reason for me to go, for US to go...bigger than I am even thinking of right now.
Maybe not even music related. In fact, probably not.
I am compelled, like gravity pulling down, some thing is pushing me out the door...and maybe I think I’m making the choice, but the hand of God is picking me up and moving me.
Either way, I am going.

So....Please don’t forget me.
Come visit if you can.
And those of you who know who you are, you few but fast friends who made me who I am, I will love you with my whole heart, and you cannot be removed from it no matter the distance.
Goodbye.