Dear Ketchikan,

So, it ends now, two summers spent here, now folded into memory.

I was talking with a friend today and realized why I came back. There was a feeling that always lingered, as my time here felt unfinished, and somehow, I found my way back to it.

Ketchikan, you have shaped me in ways I am still only beginning to understand. I was given pieces of myself I didn’t know I was missing. I have never loved a place like this, never belonged to something in quite the same way.

This place was the first thing that ever truly felt like mine

I will search for this feeling in every place I try to call home after this.

Goodbye, for now.