This is a series of posts that will log some of my thoughts in the month leading up to my moving back to New Zealand. This piece was written in 2012 at the end of my first trip to New Zealand.

Pakira Beach Holiday Park
April 6, 2012
Mind half here and half there, my heart slowly breaking at the thought of leaving while yearning for home all at the same time. Awash in a stew of conflicting emotions. Relief, joy, longing, sorrow, and excitement. I will miss the colors of the sky clashing with the land and the sea here, the vastness as I look in any direction, the lonesome roadways, the calm. A strange land, both old and new, tropical and cold. A clashing. A contradiction. Isolated from the cares of much of the rest of this world, cut off, protected by wind and wave from all sides. A haven. A place that had been my home for two months now. A place I will leave behind in 48 hours.