i came here to say goodbye with all my deeds and duties are done. though i hold onto each relationship, albeit loosely - allowing it to change and morph in ways that are sometimes inevitable - i know that the next time i return won't be for a long while.

my purpose as a student here has ended, my community as i understood it has also changed. i've wandered the streets of vancouver, relished the familiar but beheld it at a distance.

i have loved and been loved. i have taken, accepted and am now letting go.

with hands warmed over cups of coffee or poised over steaming pots of food, i've retraced our paths and let myself embrace the present.
i believe i will always love you, all of you, and especially you in my own little way. but from where you left me standing, i know i've just got to make my own way.

For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.
But, as the passage now presents no hindrance
To the spirit unappeased and peregrine
Between two worlds become much like each other,
So I find words I never thought to speak
In streets I never thought I should revisit
When I left my body on a distant shore.

- Little Gidding, T.S. Eliot

you made me 'me'.