A Year In Review

We come full circle.

Wildest Moments

My last evening in France was as intended. I wanted things to be wild and hectic. I wanted to be brazen and rushed. Now timing was everything and my destiny was unknown. I just had a bunch of digital boarding passes to different places in the world. I didn't know where I would sleep. I thought by some good graces I would have a phone. So I was straddling my suitcases and trying to change out the SIM at the back of the car. I was up and at it way before the train approached the station. It didn't occur to me I was now wild. I was the one who disobeyed the warnings. I was teetering on a moving train with several bags and a phone. I was getting the annoying yet familiar messages in French about not having enough credit. I was off the train before everyone else. I was using ticketing kiosks. I was going down escalators. I was conversing with people on the platform. 

Departed

That last night in Florence I kept one eye open. I laid there in bed while she did her usual inventory. I could feel her unpacking everything just to touch it. Then I could see her carefully folding everything back. She would sit at the desk as she did at every hotel ripping up boarding passes and receipts. Then she would throw out old empties and ravage the toiletries in the bathroom. She would struggle with her ailing phone and charge up her iPad. All loose ends were tied. She'd said all she wanted. I'd come to terms with the loss. I wasn't using her charger. She wasn't using my laptop. She'd returned my copy of Ernest Hemingway's "A Moveable Feast". I'd asked if she needed money for a taxi in Milan knowing I didn't have it to give. The creepiest part was her talking through me about her arranging so I could have breakfast and be able to stay in the room until 12pm. Now she was reaching. I didn't feel entitled and my invitation hadn't been rescinded. I didn't need her permission to do as I'd planned all along.