Always

Tonight is the last night I will sit here, the last sunset that I will watch from this balcony, the last night in this little blank apartment. The last night I will see this view, the last night that I will sit here in this chair and write. I've been thinking about so much lately, so much about the next few months, about where I'll be, what I'll be doing. It seems that so much is changing, so much of who I am is changing and so much of my future is uncertain. This apartment has been my life for a year, it's seen tears, so many many tears, it's heard my cries and screams in times of pain, it's seen broken hearts and it's seen reunions. It has witnessed the transformation of me, from college student to full time designer and has been the place that I sat night after night, watching the sunsets and looking out over the ocean wishing I was somewhere else.

I have to pack up and leave tomorrow, leave this little blank apartment that was where I thought all my dreams would come true. This little apartment that seemed so meant to be, this little apartment that I have grown up in. I'll never fly over Honolulu again in my life without looking for my building on the skyline and I won't every drive down Kalakaua without looking up to see it, red teak shutters and balconies. Whenever I stand in the parking lot at Macy's at Ala Moana, I'll glance up and smile at it, knowing that this apartment changed my life in more ways than one. When I moved in here, I thought I was here for good, I thought that my life was meant to move away from Portland, that I had arrived at the dream job, in the dream city, in the dream apartment with my dream balcony. Little did I know that my dream really wasn't this at all, but a stop along the way to get to the real dream I had left back across the ocean. This apartment, as did my old apartment at Ione, will always have a special place in my heart and I will drive by and smile, and remember living here, smiling here, crying here.

I am not just packing up my things, but packing up memories, packing up moments that happened here, moments that I'll never forget, both good and bad and moments that taught me very important lessons, lessons that I wouldn't have learned anywhere else or any other way. I will never regret being here, or taking this job or having these experiences. I don't regret the hours of tears over the last year in this apartment, or the moments when I really just wanted to jump on the next plane to get out of here and sometimes when I did do that. I will never forget sitting at my desk here by the window and looking out that night last October, when I had to get out of here, when I booked that red eye ticket spur of the moment, threw some clothes in a bag and headed for the airport. Or when I sat at my little table and just sobbed on the phone. There were also moments here that were the first of my life, like the morning packing up my pink suticase to head to Korea the first time, so excited, so nervous, so ready. Or when I bought my furniture all on my own or when I'd stand on the balcony at 6 in the morning and watch the sun rise or the night that I cooked dinner for my parents.

This apartment has also been filled with very lonely nights and very long days. It has been comfort and security and it has been mine, just mine for a year. I'll never forget this view or the feeling I get from sitting here with the door open, with the evening air surrounding me. This is the moment of the day that I love Hawaii, that evening in which the sky turns a little bit pink and the clouds move a little faster across the sky. This is the moment that I lived for here, that I loved this apartment for, this moment, sitting in this chair, next to these windows and this open door. This is the moment that got me through the past year, that gave me hope. This moment every night, that felt real, that finally felt a little bit like me after a day of feeling out of place.

Hawaii has been an adventure for me, a mixed bag for sure of both amazing moments and horrible ones. But it's also been a year full of lessons, both hard and great. I will miss this apartment and I will miss sitting here, writing, feeling. I will miss feeling and knowing like it's all mine. I will miss the feeling of sitting here, with the evening breeze blowing my curtains just a little and feeling the evening brush against my skin. So goodbye to an apartment that played a huge role in my life and that I will remember always.