I have just returned from my second-to-last visit to New Orleans to see Amanda. Soon, we’ll be living in the same place and those trips will no longer be necessary. Despite all of the hassles of flying, despite missing Amanda, the one benefit of living apart has been an excuse to go see New Orleans regularly even after I’d moved away.

In two months, I’ll visit for one last week, and then the trips will largely stop.

We hope to move back there when Amanda is done with residency, if we can swing it. There will probably be some visits for holidays, as my family’s home is still just outside the city. Nonetheless, it’s slowly dawning on me that my monthly, re-charging dose of New Orleans is coming to an end.

At this point, the legacy of Katrina in my life is diminishing. Assuming that all continues to go well, I’ll be graduating from Johns Hopkins rather than Tulane. All sorts of other things both in my head and in my life have changed as a result of the flood. However, I will once again be living with my wife, we’ll go on with our post-school and post-New-Orleans lives. I’ll finally start to get some closure on something that can never really be fixed or undone.