I'm Leaving

I can't believe the time has come. Seattle has been my home and a place I've grown to love, from the funky little shops downtown with narrow streets beckoning shoppers to sample fresh cheese, sip a fine roasted cup of coffee, or finger trinkets from street vendors peddling their goods. The streets have a life of their own here. They're alive in a way I've never seen before. The smells melt from savory puffs of roasted beef, to ethnic spices floating down to the street, even fresh fish being tossed among barking butchers at Pike's Market. The people of the street are fascinating. Each sect has taken up habitation in their own place and rarely mingle. The coffee shop and business crowd cluster in their section of town, riding the same busses and making playdates among high class housewives. The artists have their own haunts and venues, along with college students, and each linguistic and cultural community represented by every ethnic region imaginable. Diversity is a fact here.
The neighborhoods I revelled in discovering, the spots I called my own, and the people with whom I found a rare connection will be passing away from my life. At least for now.
I've already begun to mourn for the pieces of me I will leave behind. But I will let myself mourn only for the reason that it will let me get it out to embrace a new beginning.
And so the city girl of Seattle will be setting out to make a change, give a chance to a relationship, and try out her fingers in the lacings of small town life.