In this picture with terrible quality is everything I count as worth keeping. Don't be fooled: I accumulated a ton of stuff over my ~2 years here, but it turns out that, when it came down to it, I only have a few things worth the precious space in my 4Runner.

Tonight I will have a goodbye dinner with my closest friends. In a sweet sense of irony, this Portland Goodbye Dinner will involve putting on a tie and going to Olive Garden. I'm confident that it won't be the last time I see most of the people I've grown to love during my time here, but I know my time with them will never feel the same. I'll never be a local that just lives a few doors away, and I'll be removed from the "Anyone feel like grabbing a beer?" group texts. That's a crappy feeling, but I'm moving forward - and that's worth being excited about.

Celebrating our last days together will be bittersweet. I honestly don't know if it's more bitter or more sweet, but I do know I'm going feast on breadsticks. That much is a certainty.