I’m officially reaching the ‘point of intense stress’ concerning my preparations for this trip; my job ends tomorrow, I’m off for the coast in 13 days, my life is still not even remotely packed up, I need to file my taxes, get more prescriptions filled, ship the touring bikes out west, finish building two bikes, prep my OWN bikes for storage, and the finally, hopefully not omitting anything that I need to bring with me, head for the airport.

I’ve been here before - in this intense jumble that lies directly in the historical anterior of a major departure, taking stock, in some vastly chaotic way, of my entire life, my posessions, the future, my social existance, the people that I care about here, the sacrifices that I’m making, and the simultaneous excitement and terror that lie on the verge of such rapid and drastic change. It is without doubt that this trip is going to be pivotal - potentially moreso than the last voyage that I undertook, in that this time around there are some very defined questionmarks that lie at the other end of the proverbial looking glass, and I mean to answer them.

And within all of this, the single thing that I feel the strongest is the anticipation of seeing Ariella - time apart is good, for all of the cliche reasons, but trying to describe how intensely I miss her would be an excercise in futility. Seeing her on the coast in under two weeks is, for me, a promise of paradise. It’s going to be fucking great.