Always westward my heart is pointed. It always has been. Growing up westward is where everything was: the cities, the ocean, and family and the road trips to visit them. Going west was a constant adventure. Even now, as an adult my heart points west. My hometown is in the west; it’s my mecca of friends and family, trees and mountains. Cool lakes for the hot, dry summers.

As I’m writing this, I am on a plane going west. Going so far west that the world will change. The setting sun we’re chasing will become the rising sun. So far that even this hot and humid summer will be replaced by a cool coastal winter.

And there I will work, I will play, I will adventure.

My heart will long now for the east, to California and past to Texas.

I’ll say my goodbyes, and fly back to greet the setting sun and catch it in the air.

But not without leaving a piece of heart in the form of a little sister in the far west, the land of the setting sun.