So crooned John Denver many years ago.

It is 9:30 am and my bags are packed, except for a few toiletries. Family dinner is at 2:30 when I will officially say “Good-bye” for this trip.  Between now and then, there is little I can do — Taxco “doesn”t wake up until 11 am” so the people I want to see before I go are not available until then.

So here I sit, reminiscing about my time here. About Irma, who so generously opened her home to me and promptly stole my heart. About her family — Carlos and little Natalia; Fany and her girls, Carla and Barbara; Alejandro, Fabian, Ana, Frida, and little Fabian; and Rojelio who all became my family as well. Also about Irma’s other children whom I met briefly, or not, but came to know through her.

I think about the friends I have here, both old and new, and how hard it is to leave everyone behind for half a year or more.

I think of all the wonderful adventures that I have had this visit — walking dirt paths of Cerro Gordo and San Juan, climbing mountains in Tetipac and Taxco, festivals, and fireworks, making new friends in Cuernavaca and San Miguel de Allende, and of course, that crazy slat bridge! (There are so many more adventures that I have still to share with you.)

Yet it is time to leave, and though the leaving is difficult and filled with sadness, I know that the coming back will be and is always joyous.

As I head into the deep freeze that is the Midwest, and from there to the Northeast to welcome, Isaiah, the newest (1 day old) member of the Blue Bear family, I do so with mixed feelings – joy for what lies ahead and sadness for what I must leave behind.

As another old lyric says, “Breaking up is hard to do.”