Fare Thee Well, Love

'So Farewell to Nova Scotia, the sea-battered coast
Let your mountains dark and dreary be
For when I am far away on the briny ocean tossed
Will you ever heave a sigh and a wish for me?'

This is my last week in North Bay. I have two short, un-intimidating exams and then I leave. In fact, I only have until Thursday. I hadn't given myself any time at all to think about what any of it all meant until now.
I know it's okay. I know I'll be alright. In five years I've left a lot of things and moved on. And if I am entirely honest with myself, it was never really the city of North Bay that I loved about going to school here. I can get so infuriated with the late buses and the cold winds and the complete absence of Arby's and Quiznos that it genuinely robs me of some peace. I think the politics of the town are silly; only slightly sillier than the politics of the university, which mostly make me tired. And I am more than happy to be leaving Nipissing; after 5 long years of bungling, fumbling and not living up to a reasonable standard of professionalism, I can't wait to stop hemorrhaging money here.
And yet, for all of its spots, I really wish I could stay.

Certainly a big part of it is the people. The community here has been nothing short of miraculous. It defies physics that so much power and love and good can be concentrated in so small a place.
I think it is plain old nostalgia. I know it is better to just move on and be, but so often I would rather live in the happy memories: swimming to the island off Sunset Bay, feeling embarrassed in Kelsey's because my friends were pretending it was my birthday, staying up late at night by candles swapping stories of grace with the Indonesia people, pelting friends with gummy frog candies, sitting around the living room with our laptops out so we wouldn't have to actually talk to each other, walking home from class and being laughed at for being too serious, bailing out the flooded basement with 40 people singing upstairs who I didn't invite, watching my prof's 8 year old son call my most dreaded and aloof first year prof by his first name like it was nothing, running through the tunnel filled with shad flies, being caught holding hands by my roommates on the way home from our first dinner-and-movie date, washing feet in the backyard, seeing the whole city at the lakeshore bandstand for Worship in the Bay, being dunked in the frigid water in the tank at Greenwood after crying in front of all my family and friends and everyone who I ever fooled into thinking I was stronger than that, running around the beach in bright orange everything because my broski was running around in all green, and climbing out of my own bedroom window because they locked me in and wet-willied a key off me.

Here, before the faceless legions of the blogosphere, I say to you all, "Thank you."
Thank you for the laughs and tears and elbows to sternums. Thanks for the free chips and dip, perogies 'recipe' and essay-editing. Thanks for the fresh-baked bread, long nights playing board games and for tackle-hugging me back. Hands-down this has been the most rewarding 5 years of my life. And I very seriously don't know what I'm going to do without you all.