Goodbye 2009. That's right. Long-time Goodbye. It's the end of the third month of of the second decade of the new millennium, but I'm still saying Goodbye to the last. And that's because I'm Packing. Packing to leave this place. When I took this photo, I was cherishing the surroundings that contained 16 years of my life. I have lived longer in this house than I have any other in my 49-and-counting years. This summer, I will say Goodbye to these cozy environs that witnessed my leap into Motherhood, my plunge into the autism journey three years later, and five years thereafter, my launch into Divorce. It was the place where I wrote two books (one is still in draft stage). And then it is also here, I Found Love Once Again. And now, that New Love is taking me to a New Home.

Last week, while Grace enjoyed three days of Spring Break Camp, I huddled over boxes in our upstairs bonus room, my hands dusty from the transfer of "stuff" to cardboard containers. At least two shelves of the main bookcase have housed my journals dating back to circa 1977–my junior year of high school. That's when I can remember actively beginning to scribble down my thoughts. Back then and through college, the old black-and-white composition books, their lined note paper bound within, collected my random (bad) poetry, my angst of teen and college years. Through my busy early career years of my 20's I resorted to fancy bound calendars scribe-ing notes and records of my days. There's an odd assortment of random-sized small journals from my early 30s. But at some point, I figured out the perfect size for me was about 7 by 5 inches spiral bound. The binding gives me neat, handy flexibility–open or folded. The width accommodates a hand flowing with pen across a lined, thick, good-quality page. No thin stuff. Bleh.

Photo: Kasaa

Being that I'm a seminar slut, to all my conferences, workshops and seminars, I take along a large 8.5 x 11ish spiral bound with lines on one side, blank on another. I have a collection of these filled and stuffed and crammed with the journals. And more for sketching and art classes.

Sometimes I combine my journaling and my note-taking. And in one of those from the mid 80s to early 90s–my 20s and 30s–I found these quotes. Some are from speeches I listened to, others are from books I read. The Fiance said I was moving so slowly in my packing because I was taking time to reminisce. True. But it was sweet and I realized what a significant impact some of these people and books had on those formative years:

"The greatest secret to living a happy and fulfilled life is realizing that everything is created in our minds before it manifests itself in the outer world. We must believe before we can see." Sarah Ban Breathnach, Simple Abundance: A Year of Comfort and Joy. (One of my all-time favorite books.)

"Art is the flesh as it becomes words." Robert Shaw*

"The more deeply a person delves into themself, the more closely s/he returns to others." –Shaw

"It's not possible to do self-awareness and self-discovery without others." —Bill Turner

"The older a person gets, the more sensitized they become to human love."  — Brother Tom, Monastery of the Holy Spirit, Conyers, Ga., 1985

"One of the lessons Christ came to show us is that being Divine is humanly possible." — Dan Laird**, 1985

*I could not determine if these were the words of Robert Shaw, the late Atlanta Symphony director or the actor by the same name.

**My young adult Sunday School Teacher, also a psychotherapist, at Northside Drive Baptist, Atlanta

Top Photo: My Best shot Monday