Mixed Feelings

     When I graduated from high school, I remember experiencing a strange sense of guilt because I was not at all sad about it. While most of my classmates were lamenting the end of the "good times", and talking about how sad they were to leave the supposedly idyllic small town we grew up in, I was counting down the days until I could stop pretending to even know what "good times' they were talking about.
     While I want to believe I'm not as cynical as I was back then, that strange sense of guilt is trying to come back again. As I prepare to move to a new state very soon, I find myself answering a lot of questions about how I feel about this move, and many times those questions feel like they are asked with the expectation of a certain answer. If I say I'm excited to go, I worry that it will sound like I have a terrible life here that I can't wait to get away from. If I say there are people and things I am sad to leave, I worry that it will sound like I'm not excited to go. Basically the moral of this story is that I really need to chill out and stop worrying about the implications of my answers.
     Jokes aside, there is no single answer that fully describes how I feel about the next stage of my life, and I think that is why the question causes me so much anxiety. Yes, I'm happy to go, and yes sometimes I'm a little sad as well. Yes I'm excited to experience new things, and yes there are things I am sad to leave behind. It's a complicated way to feel, and I find it very difficult to explain fully within the context of casual small talk.
    Moving to Nome is in no way an impulsive decision. It is the result of a process that has taken many months, and that process was the result of events throughout my life that have made me the person I am right now. It is also the result of a ten page application, two stages of interviews, and three weeks of training. Over the past few months, I have had a lot of discussions with God, many of them full of questions and maybe a bit of complaining when the answers did not come right away. But when they finally did come, I trusted them, because I had been searching for them with my whole heart. That's how I feel about moving. Even though my human emotions will cause some homesickness and nostalgia, I can say with certainty that I am doing what I need to be doing right now.
     The next time someone asks me how I feel about moving to Nome, I'll probably just say I'm excited, and that will be very true. But maybe this would be a more complete answer; My brain is excited and sometimes overwhelmed, my heart is eager but nostalgic, but the most important thing is that my soul is at peace. And that has made all the difference.