Leaving is no fun.

It's funny how, even though it was many months ago that we made the huge decision to move to California, the realization that this was actually going to happen only dawned on me very gradually (and recently).

It was way back in mid-2009 that PK and I were weighing the pros and cons of various locations at which to do postdocs, and finally decided to both try and find jobs in SF. But who knew if we'd be successful?

Then by February we'd both accepted great postdocs in the Bay Area, but neither of us had finished our theses, so the prospect of actually being postdocs one day seemed hopelessly remote.  Looking back, I was clearly in Stage 1: denial.

Then, in August, things suddenly became a lot more real when we found our fantastic apartment, and even flew out for a quick trip to unload the boxes from our shipping container. Our new neighborhood was so cute, the sun was shining, we ate great food and saw friends... it was awesome. This kicked off Stage 2: EUPHORIA! I spent countless hours daydreaming about what our new life would be like, and we had an embarassingly large number of conversations that went something like this:

O: I'm so excited to move to California!!

PK: It's going to be so great!!

O: It's going to be amazing!

PK: I'm so excited to move to California!!

(repeat)

We couldn't wait to leave! (This was also around the time when I was completing my thesis, so that might have contributed to my strong desire to hit the fast-forward button on my life and just get the heck out to California already.)

But recently things changed again when I started saying some sad goodbyes, and was confronted with the reality that the clock was rapidly counting down to the moment when we left Boston for a long, long time. Now we have exactly one week left, which means 7 depressing days of doing things for The Last Time. So I seem to have entered Phase 3: despondence.

Tonight, for example, I went to my 3rd-to-last Tae Kwon Do class.  I love my TKD class and will really miss it, so afterwards I was feeling pretty down (and also hungry). PK was out of town, so I was all by myself for dinner. I had a strong urge to go our favorite Thai restaurant for one last pad-see-ew (with tofu), but the thought of sitting there all alone in the place where we'd had so many happy and delicious dinners was way too depressing. So I instead made one last pilgrimage to another place with many happy eating memories: Anna's Taqueria. Both my super burrito al pastor and horchata were sensational, and afterwards I felt a little better.