Pre-departure Jitters

I have only 3 days until I leave for Italy for 6 months, and I can't say that I've been more ready. And while I can't wait to board my plane and set off, I have been utterly overwhelmed by nervousness, excitement, sadness, nostalgia, anxiety, and loneliness. Everything is slowly but surely sinking in. My head has been spinning wildly with all of these crazy up and down emotions and thoughts that have been racing through my mind, and I've barely been able to keep my sanity. But I will be off very soon, and in the process of setting up this blog, I decided it would perhaps be appropriate to post a poem that I wrote. I've shared it with some of my friends already, but I wrote it about a month ago, and I hope you will enjoy it. I'm not great at it, but I used to write a lot, and so here is my renewed attempt at poetry ...

A dove, pretty and flawed,
with golden wings, restless, unsure,
the future bright, an ending raw,
A nest left empty, no door, no floor,
She flies alone, the unknown blinding,
her path unguided by a lost, searching soul,
wondering what in the world is most worth finding,
she's misplaced that fire, her fate un-whole,
her roots unearthed, her intuition blighted,
she's carried by the winds of time, of change,
leaving behind love, mistakes, and wrongs not righted,
there's no turning back, the past out of range,
for now anyways, for someday she'll return,
with wings ever stronger, and mind ever wise,
with memory of this place in her mind forever burned,
though nostalgic, surreal, with eyes forward she flies.
Her body wrought with fear, her heart heavy and sunk,
she's abandoned the known, her connections, her sanity,
but for hope, for curious hope, not all happiness is shrunk,
her senses desire and crave, something new, something free,
the journey ahead, with no promise, just me,
and a sparkling ray in the distance, the key,
the answer, the quest, the means, the end,
a piece of herself, alone, to cherish, to keep,
her dreams, her world, so real, so pretend.