Leaving Austin felt different from every other goodbye I’ve lived through—and I’ve lived through a few dramatic ones. I didn’t sprint toward this next chapter the way I did at 18 or 22. I didn’t burn my life down on the way out or convince myself that detachment was a personality trait.
This time, I felt everything.
Every tug, every ache, every tiny electric pulse of anticipation.
Savoring a City Before Leaving It
In the days leading up to leaving, I tried to savor the city that had become my teacher.
- I sat in Zilker Park at sunrise, alone, watching the skyline glow awake as the grass dampened the back of my legs.
- I wandered the East Side, weaving through mural-lined streets that had been the backdrop to my messiest nights and most unexpected friendships.
- I ducked into the bars I once haunted—now as a visitor paying respects, not a chaos agent looking for trouble.
- I caught one final UT football game at the bar where I’d recently met people who reminded me that friendship doesn’t need a decade to feel meaningful.
- I grabbed a last slice of Homeslice pizza(IYKYK), because sentimentality is easier with carbs.
- I circled the lake, pausing at iconic spots to snap selfies like a tourist in a life I had actually lived.
- And on my final night, I sat with a smashburger in one hand and a martini in the other, surrounded by friends who deserved more time than I could give them.
There was a weight to all of it.
A soft grief.
A gratitude that made my chest tight.
Austin wasn’t a chapter I fled—it was one I outgrew gently. I didn’t leave because I was running. I left because, for the first time in my life, I was still enough to hear the call to move forward.
Then Came Guatemala
The plane landed, and something in me settled even before the wheels touched down.
I stepped into the arrivals hall and was immediately swallowed by chaos—people shouting, hugging, waving signs, converging in every direction. It was loud, hot, overwhelming.
And yet… I felt calm.
The kind of calm that chooses you.
When I stepped outside, the humid air wrapped around me like a familiar blanket. I scanned the crowd for my driver and blinked away tears—not of fear, not of sadness, but of an almost eerie certainty.
This was right.
This was timed.
This was mine.
Arriving can be just as emotional as leaving, if you’re paying attention.
The Moment It Hit Me
The last few months had been a slow goodbye to a city that gave me joy, connection, healing, and glimmers of the person I was finally becoming.
But this moment—standing on a sidewalk in Guatemala with my hair instantly frizzing and my name misspelled on a piece of paper—this was the moment that anchored me.
This was the moment that said: yes.
- Yes to change.
- Yes to uncertainty.
- Yes to trusting that I can choose something without needing to escape something else.
And as I stood there—humid air clinging to me, strangers swirling around, someone yelling a name that definitely wasn’t mine—I just laughed.
Because of course this would be the moment I felt calm.
Of course the universe would wait until I was sweaty, exhausted, and confused to hand me clarity.
But honestly?
That’s how I knew.
Sometimes the heart whispers.
Sometimes it screams.
And sometimes it taps you on the shoulder in the middle of a Guatemalan arrivals hall and goes,
“Hey—you’re home. Stop fighting it.”
-A
One Life One Encounter 
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