Today is the day

One more post from the states before I go. I am little less than 11 hours from my scheduled departure time out of LAX. Oddly enough, I awoke today feeling like it was any other day. Even stranger was that I slept like a rock last night. Typically the night before I am going somewhere or doing something exciting I can't sleep. I am like a seven year old on Christmas Eve, I toss and turn all night just imaging what the next day holds (to this day I still can't sleep very well on Christmas Eve). But last night was different. Perhaps I was so exhausted from the days activities. I had been running around town since about 8:30am trying to get a couple last minuted errands taken care of before I left. I think more than anything else I was emotionally exhausted from the evening.
This coming semester will mark the longest amount of time that Katie and I will have been apart from each other. Needless to say, last night was very important because we said goodbye. I picked her up from her house around 6:30 and we had dinner reservations at the Wine Cask at 7:00. I had never been to the Wine Cask before, but it is an extremely nice little restaurant off Anacapa Street in the El Paseo shopping center. We sat next to the fire place and felt like rich people. After deciding what to order for dinner we looked through the wine list, which was the most extensive I have ever seen, not that I have seen many though. The list came in its own binder and was at least twenty pages long, pretty impressive. We giggled like two children as we decided what wine we would order, if we had a trust fund. We finally decided on a vintage champaign that would put a $4000 dent in my check book. Then the waiter came and asked if we had made a selection for the evening, and we told him we would be skipping wine this evening. After some more talking and laughing, our meals came. Katie ordered the salmon, which came on top of a bed or rice and peas and some other vegetable I had never seen before, and I ordered the filet mignon, which came on top of the most delicious tomato I have ever eaten in my life and a "chive potato cake." The meal was delicious and the atmosphere was excellent. If you ever have the opportunity and the funds to eat at the Wine Cask, I highly recommend it. After browsing the dessert menu, we decided to move the evening somewhere else, but not before Katie gave me a travel journal that she had personalized for me with some pictures and loving words. This journal was one of the better gifts I have ever received because of the thoughtfulness that went into it.
After leaving the Wine Cask and driving around for a while, we decided to head to Butterfly Beach. Butterfly Beach holds a special significance in our relationship, as I am sure it does with many relationships. Some of our best talks and times spend together have happened here at this beach. The moon was somewhere between half and full and extremely bright. After sitting on the beach in a blanket for about twenty minutes, we realized it was pretty cold out and there were weird bugs that kept jumping on my feet. So we went back to the car and talked for a while about life and travel and our relationship and our future. Then Katie drove me back to my apartment to drop me off because she had work early in the morning and she had already missed her 10pm bed time by a half hour. So it was in the hallway and parking lot of my apartment that we said goodbye. This was the most difficult goodbye of my life. I have said goodbye to many people many times before, family, friends, etc. But I have never had to say goodbye to someone like this before. No one has impacted my life and touched my heart the way that Katie has. For most of the week I kept telling myself I must be crazy for leaving her. And then, last night, holding her in my arms for the last time in a little less than four months, I knew I really was crazy, but I also knew it was alright.
This is a journey I need to take. I need to go to Europe and experience everything the semester holds, I need to go see all I can see, learn all I can learn, experience all I can experience. An opportunity like this comes once in a lifetime, if even that often. Going to Europe to live and learn is a blessing from God, and to turn away from that would just not be okay. I am excited to embark on this journey, I am excited to be stretched and to grow in new ways, to learn things about myself and the world I live in, and to find God in far off places. I know over the course of the coming months I will change, and I am excited to see what those changes are. More than anything I desire to be a servant for the Lord and to the people I come in contact with, whether they be my peers on the trip, the professors and their families, or random people I meet along the way. As I leave on this journey, I would ask any of you who are reading my blog to keep me in your prayers so that I would be safe and faithful to my desires. The next time I post I will be in Ireland!
Love and blessings,
Mikey