Final Invitation

Following confirmation that I was in fact going to Kenya, I drove home hysterical.
Laughing until I cried and back again. A loud and resounding laugh. A release of almost a year of crawling anticipation. A spontaneous and unrestrainable sound.
That was the final interview.
And now I have my full invitation.
My project description and invitation and a brand new set of forms to meticulously fill out.
But I can't read them just yet. When the time comes (probably tomorrow) I will go thru them as carefully as I can. Make new to do lists. But for now...for now this bundle of papers feels more like something I want to hold. Something I want to just sit with and drift off.
This whole process has been so bizarre and so long coming. From May when I graduated till mid February to really get all this confirmed. And its still not done. There are still more forms and more hoops. But they will get done.
This whole damn year has been bizarre. Nights, tonight, where I am filled with this explosive energy. This feeling of something to share! Something to let out...and no place to do it. No one to do it in front of and with...which is more revealing than anything else.
I know its partially my own doing. The circumstances I find myself in no doubt provide a challenge to a normal social life, but its still me. At the most basic level, I have separated myself out. I have refused to make the extra effort to go an hour out of my way for the people who I have met this year who do value me.
For coworkers and friends who would be happy to share time with me, if I would make the effort to get there, I have kept myself apart.
Kept myself separate for what? To make this leaving easier?
I know the thought of this departure is the context for everything else this entire year.
Every relationship or job or class, every dinner or drink, every purchase ...
Going...Going...Going...Gone.
Gone soon. Sooner than I expect, I think.
What seems counterintuitive, and perhaps perverse, is that the specifics of this project are insubstantial. It is the existence of the departure...the fact of my leaving that is most affecting. Most consuming.
What I am expecting next is a reversal.
This whole year has been one without consequence. Its the reason my finances are so fucked up. Its the reason I have dreams most nights of life filled with people I love whom I am far from.
Each thing has lacked any particular sense of urgency, any particular sense of deep and purposeful meaning. Because I was leaving, it didn't matter if it was this job or the other. It didn't matter if I made the effort to go out or to call this person back or to build a life here that I really loved.
I expect that this approaching departure - its concrete nature and specific description - will reverse this whole chain of reasoning.
I will bet that I will find that I do, in fact, love this life. I will probably start to think I always did. I will put a level of significance into each day and action - and interaction - that is far above what I allowed for these first...9 months?
Leaving is like that. I guess.
It's a change that is in process even now. The title of this blog is: "At a Loss."
Which, now, sounds depressing. Sounds empty and sad. But I don't feel that way.
Not now.
And so the title will change in the same way that my perspective has begun to.
"Life is Full"
Cause thats what it is. It always is...if you will work to see it.
I leave for Kenya May 22, 2007.