Dear Indianapolis

To my home, my love, and the most underrated place in the world, it is time for me to say goodbye. I'm not leaving forever, but I feel like I owe you a goodbye and some credit for bringing me to this point. I never understood the whole "Naptown" thing. Maybe you had grown up a lot before I was born. Maybe I was too young to understand what made Indy a sleepy city. Or maybe people from coastal metropolises just do not understand the beauty of it all.

Driving around the last few weeks, I have been taking it in and savoring each moment, the photographs in my mind that I need for the hard days. I drove to visit a friend at her new house, and within 10 minutes, I had driven through downtown, past bustling city streets, dodging pedestrians leaving work, and found myself in quiet farmland, weaving through country roads, watching the cows, and enjoying the corn begin to grow. There is something startlingly beautiful about watching the sun set over your fields. 

Aidan and I ate breakfast at Cafe Patachou a few weeks ago and began talking to a woman and her daughter, visiting from Boston. They made a comment that people here were "simple." Simple. As in stupid? Boring? Or centered? Genuine? I hope they meant that Hoosiers are the kind of people you want around you in good times and bad. The kind of people who drop everything to help you fix a flat tire or offer to carry your groceries to your car. I hope they noticed that Hoosiers are the kind of people who send you e-mails at 2 am, just to wish you well. They are the kind of people who put you on a plane to Colorado, reassure you that you are loved, and tell you that this adventure is going to be the best of your life. I hope that's what they meant.

Indianapolis, it's been real. I grew up during my first 17 years here, and the last 4 have changed my life. As I pack it all up, as I say some very difficult goodbyes, as I get on that plane, I can't help but think that there is so much more learning to be done.