Goodbye, Agnes

Well, we made it through five months or so together. I don't think that we've spent this much time together since we were 4 years old. We made it through tears, beers, your extra 12 pounds, my imaginary weight gain, and a mutual new found love for pierogi with meat. We fought at times, you were in the wrong each time, but for the last few months got along really well. It feels weird now that you're gone, especially since now it's really nice out and it finally looks like what I wanted you to see, sunny, colourful and bustling with activity.

And now you're home for the first time after living abroad, and home is something different and strange. Scary? Surreal? Disappointing? Disorienting? Difficult to recognize? It comes to pass in a few weeks, but hold onto the important thing you realized: that 'real life' is an idea that people that never have the balls to leave home push onto you, that a real and fulfilling and crazy and difficult life awaits you when you risk it all again and being life in a new country with new people.

You're going to get advice from two different camps now, those that tell you to suck it up, that you had your fun, and now it's time to get used to real life and grow up. They think that feeling you have now is something to be swallowed up and ignored.

The others, the minority, but the brilliant ones, will tell you that you just had a taste, and that feeling you have right now is your heart reminding you when you took a big risk you were really alive, really scared, really happy, and each day was different and meant something. Home will always be there waiting for you, so eat some bean burritos and get the hell out of there again!


Cheer up junior, Poland was just the start...

Computerized rendering of what Agnes would have looked like by the first snowfall of next year.