It's late and I'm tired. There's no good reason that I should be writing anything right now other than I promised myself. Oddly I write best late at night maybe because my conscious analytical brain is slowly checking out and my poetic late night delirious brain is taking over.

I'm moving tomorrow. Really moving. Well, I take it back. In my world really moving means cramming everything I own into suitcases and boxes and jumping on a plane that takes me half way around the planet. I'm only going an hour away, to Portland, and I'm actually going back to somewhere I used to live. I haven't moved back to a city that I used to live in since Tokyo, and I moved from there fourteen years ago.

I've lived in Salem, Oregon for the past four and a half years; since January of 2006 to be exact. There have been good time and great times. There's been hard time too and seasons of frustration like never before. I could write a whole blog on reminiscing about the past and processing my life in Salem but I don't have the brain power for that. What I'd rather do is say goodbye to Salem.

So here I go and it's a hard thing to do. I hate goodbyes but I have to process them or I'll be detached from my feelings.

Dear Salem, goodbye. Goodbye all my old haunts, the Gov Cup, Thompsons, Safeway, Commercial street and everything on it. Goodbye Battle Creek and driving fast late at night because I know the roads so well. Goodbye fields and trees, coyotes and deer, mice in our house and flies in my room.

Goodbye base and all the offices, the mail room, the corral, hospitality and cafe. Goodbye to the MPR and the walk to the top. Goodbye to my house, to my room, bathtub, cramped little kitchen and fireplace.

And now the hardest of all and my least favorite part of moving... goodbye my friends, goodbye to all of you. We've shared so many good times, so many memories. We've laughed and cried together, sang and prayed together. We've fought and encouraged, we've worked through our lowest lows and enjoyed our brightest highs together. We've grown in spirit and in truth. We've shared four and a half years of life and it has been good.

But it is also good to move on and explore the new horizons of what God has for us. I shall miss you all terribly but I leave knowing more is in store for you and for me. I can't help but be filled with joy and expectation about what is to come. We are all walking into the destiny God has called us to... and it has been an honor to walk along side of you for the past four years.

May you be richly blessed as you move into the future. And may we meet again.