I had a decent blog about transition, and place and identity, that I was going to write on Sunday night after I got back to school, but it was thankfully abandoned. I came back to Chicago really pessimistic, mostly because I knew I was going to have to jump right into scheduling hell and partly because it's always easier for me to dread the future. Leaving felt a lot like September again, which may have been due to the weather being similar to when I left the first time. My parents were kind of treating me like that, too, though. My dad has a practice now of constantly asking me if there's anything I want/need to do before I leave, which always seems to sound like he's fishing for last requests. On Sunday he decided we'd have a cook-out as a late lunch before I left. So there we all were on Sunday afternoon, a half-hour before I was supposed to leave, my bags all packed, sitting around eating bratwurst and potato salad and cole slaw. It was like a last meal before I get the chair. And again, I felt that desperate need to soak up the home-ness, to look around more and take it all in like I was never going to see it again. It's an imprecise feeling but not totally out there; essentially, I am moving toward some unforeseen time when I will not be able to go home again. Maybe it's more of a process than a pivotal point, a number of slow steps that have already begun in the increments between breaks; I feel like I'm being pulled away from home slowly so I have more time to say goodbye and get my affairs in order. I don't always feel like this, but sometimes when I first wake up in the morning, either in Alpharetta or Chicago, it strikes me and it hits hard.