The approaching weekend marks not only the beginning of November, and therefore two weeks until I pick up my life and place it somewhere else, but also the arrival of a friend from Florence.  He is a really great, generous person that I met while looking for a job the first time around.  He got me a job and gave me a cell phone as well.  He arrives on Friday, October 31 -Halloween.  The next day is the big party we have been preparing for since I got here, the annual Heaven and Hell costume party.  I have spent many a day painting trim, cupboards, plywood, more plywood and touching up bathroom paint.  I have cleaned and scoured all corners, and will be doing so again this week.  We are running around like crazy, our heads exploding at the thought that this is the final week pre-party.  And it’s that much closer to that illusive flight.

I have been living out of my suitcases, so to speak.  I have them open on the floor, clothes and other odds and ends continuously draped over them, often spilling onto the floor or into each other.  I have no idea how I will get all of these things I love to fit, and come with me.  The traveling will be a hassle, because I will be dragging this luggage through Rome to the train station, and traveling two more hours after landing to my final destination.  My friend is coming on Friday and will meet me at the train station in Florence to help me drag all of my most beloved things back to Cazzatore’s apartment.  Over cobbled streets and up several flights of stairs where I will store them in some corner of his room until I take over the other room a couple of weeks later.  He won’t be there when I arrive.  He will arrive from a vacation with a friend the next day, when I go back to school.  I’m not sure what I will do until he arrives, but I hope it will be something along the lines of wandering the city alone and catching my breath for a moment, and not sitting around the apartment looking out the windows at intervals, waiting.  This is my journey.  I want him to be a part of it, but I don’t want him to be the main story line.  This is about me, changing my life, challenging myself and learning how to be okay with not holding on so tightly to a little thing called love.