miles from home, doing the best that we can

i feel as if everywhere i've gone has left a mark on me, as if every wall i've touched or every person i've hugged was covered in wet paint. i am like a canvas, painted red-orange-yellow-green-blue-indigo-violet with every place i can possibly call home. i have left my heart in so many different places that it's hard to track the pieces down-- it's a connect-the-dots across the globe, across the country, the line that always pulls us up when we think we're sinking.

tonight it hit me for the first time that this is it, this is really goodbye-- well, at least until january. i wish we could attach cans to the end of this imaginary line and whisper our words through them, a too-young connection in a world that is growing too old for us, too fast. if i could go back to the beginning, back to before we knew this was even possible, i wouldn't do it any differently-- even the hard parts, even the bad parts, even the sad parts; because that way, the good parts are that much better.

they say the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, but here's my secret: the scattered pieces of my heart only strengthen its durability, and it feels more whole now than it's ever been before.