7 Day Countdown Begins. How Do You Miss Something You've Not Left Yet?

It's Thursday. I'll be on a plane at this time next week, and I'm starting to feel a little nostalgic, even though I'm still here. It's pretty much an emotional whirlwind when you do this. Some days, I'm really excited for the adventure. Other days, it's just exhausting because there's too much to do an never enough time. Still others are sad. There are things that I will miss desperately about this place. Really, it's not days; it's more hours and minutes that all those feelings wash over me. Sometimes all at once.

What will I miss? I'll miss living in Alabama. Yes, everything people say about Alabama is true. There are so many hateful, racist people here, and alot of them don't even know they are doing it. Yes,

Alabama, you are embarrassing most of the time. But that's not the Alabama that I know, the Alabama I wish people saw more of. The smartest, most accepting and funniest people I've ever met live here, and I wish people knew that. Y'all keep doing that and maybe one day your voices will drown out the hatred and the ignorance.

I'll miss football weekends in Tuscaloosa, but probably not the way you think. The game has become almost secondary to me. Football Saturdays have become synonymous with smoked meats, and Lamplighter IPAs at Druid City Brewing for me, and Jacob, Bo, Elliot and all the great people who gather there. If you haven't spent a Saturday there, do it. Tuscaloosa is magical. There are prettier places, sometimes I wish it wasn't so hyper-focused on athletics, but it's a place that shaped my belief

system and I've never met kinder people anywhere.

I'll miss New Orleans. For 40 years, I've never known what it means to miss New Orleans, as the song says, but I'm about to find out. Living so close, I've developed close friendships there, watched the Saints win a Super Bowl there, and had some of my best times as an adult there.

I'll miss my friends. I know I'll still talk to Metz pretty much daily and there are a few other people, you know who you are, who are necessary to my life that I'll talk to frequently. But visits home will be short, and I won't get to see everyone I'd like to see. So, I'm sure some of us will drift apart, and that makes me sad. I do hope that those of you who have said you'll come to Guatemala actually do it. It would mean the world to me.

Well, I didn't mean for this installment to be a downer, but it turned out that way. But with change there's good and there's bad. I still think the good will prevail, and this is going to be a net positive thing for me. I remain excited. The countdown begins.