The spirit road of melted wax, amorphous journeys, and finding my way home.

I'm watching wax drip and harden onto the sturdy home of the wooden desk I found on the corner of my block a month ago, and I'm actually envious. If only I could melt and harden onto something. If only all this transmutation could translate into staying put for a while.

I say it like I'm powerless in the situation. Like I don't hold the match, like I don't have a wick, like there aren't 1,000 wooden desks that would catch my wax if I only I would let them.

But the thing is, all candle metaphors aside, I'm undergoing an epic reshaping. No matter how glad I am with the varying "results", no matter how free I feel leaving behind the structures that no longer serve me, epic reshapings are straight up messy. Especially when your new shape's not certain. For all I know, I could run into the table cloth and get stuck, or drip down the side of the desk, parts of me completely falling off the edge.

I'm about to embark on another cross-country adventure, and while some may read that sentence and think, how lucky, the truth is, I've been dreading the movement. In the past 3 years, I haven't lived in one place for more than 6 months. I want to go home. To a home that stays. But it doesn't exist yet. And that's... tiring.

Additionally, leaving is going to mean facing a lot people who I love, who I've been with forever, and telling them: I won't be seeing you as much. I'm a huge roots person. This will not be easy for me. Nonetheless, I'm flying home and then packing my most important possessions into my 1992 Chrysler Le Barron (also known as Christ Labron...pray for it's Christliness), hugging and kissing my family and friends 10,000 times, and saying goodbye.

I wish I could just snap my fingers and be planted in my "new life." Skip over all the ache. But there's a literal rite of passage from one side of this country to the other that awaits me. An intentional letting go. It's a big deal, and I can't surpass it. So I'm doing the only thing I feel good about doing to make it really work for me: embracing it all the way.

Tomorrow I'll tell you about what I want to share with you as I travel across the country. Until then, thank you for being here. I can feel your support somehow, unexplainably so. I don't feel alone. And I'm glad for that. Also, thank you for your responses to my last post. It's been so long since I shared my truth with the world, that to be received with such deep love was an unbelievable buoy to my spirit. Thank you.

All my love,
Rachael