Goodbye, North Carolina

---

In my opinion, saying goodbye is the hardest part of life...especially when you say goodbye to someone that you know that you may never see again. I packed my bags last night, cleaned my small room that I had entered only 5 months ago, and looked at the space around me. It was just a room. Another person would move in, another girl would sit at that desk, leaning over her books during the early hours of the morning to cram for that last minute exam. Another person would jump onto and off of that bed and attempt to try to rearrange the furniture which is nearly impossible with the bulky wardrobe in the corner. And for as long as that apartment is standing, students will pass through the rooms, never knowing who was there before them. Was the prior inhabitant a good student, a packrat, a math major, a morning person, a coffee addict, a sister, a redhead, or perhaps a loner. And the new person will never know the answers to any of these questions...they'll never hear of me...a small-town Idaho girl, going to college in Alaska, heading off to North Carolina because of what she read in a Nicholas Sparks book, pursuing Marine Biology, and staring out of the window of that room 5 months ago, wondering what the hell she had gotten herself into.

But that is the drawback with saying goodbye. And now as I sit in the Charlotte, NC airport, I'm thinking back on my 5 months in Wilmington, NC. It was one of the worst and one of the best times. It definitely changed me and my attitude on life. I don’t ever want to take life for granted. I don’t think that I had before, but I realized how much more I was capable of by coming to this big university with 10,000 students that didn’t have the same comforts as my small university nestled in the Alaskan Southeast. It was my first taste of life beyond what I had been used to, and I survived. I smile at those simple two words. I now know what loneliness feels like but I also know the feeling of being uncontrollably happy. And I love all of the people that I met while I was at UNCW. They made me happier, made life more fun, and changed me in ways that they will never know. To everyone I met and to all of the places I’ve seen, it’s not goodbye for ever. Be prepared, I will be back next year because the beaches of the Atlantic are just too beautiful to stay away from forever. But for now, I'm off to new adventures, do a little traveling and visiting the family, eventually making it back to my small university by the lake, and spending summer as a fish clipper with Fish & Game. But today (and the reason for this entry was just to say): Goodbye, North Carolina!!

---