I've never said no before

I just told my boss that, although I am very grateful to have been asked, I do not want to extend my contract for another year after October. I was quite unreasonably terrified (What do you mean say no? But I'm not worthy in the first place! They'll hate me...) but it was OK.

I'm glad I don't have to think about the decision any more, although I never really doubted what I wanted. There are wonderful things and there are miserable things about being here, and I don't regret coming for a moment, but regardless I feel like a migrant bird, feeling the call of a far away place in the tiny magnetic crystals in its cells. The very dust I am made of seems to feel the distance, and strain against it. Every day I think of coming home with more gladness.