Making Ready, or Working Really Damn Hard to Stay Calm

Well, here we are, about midway through my last hurrah.

Again.

I seem to find a reason to have "last hurrahs" about every three months, so I suppose the term carries less weight than it should in my case, but boy if this one isn't hitting home.

A year is a long time.

I've enjoyed the time spent with old friends so far this month. Some I've seen often enough in the last few years. Others I haven't seen in five.

And no one's fault but mine.

But they've all been gracious, said they'd miss me, shown me a good time. Choosing to evacuate myself from the day to day lives of friends so loyal--well, I can't say it's any sort of easy.

Odd as it is, though, the thing that might have struck me most concerns the new people I've met, the members of my dad's new church, the coincidental acquaintances, the friends-of-friends I'd never known... for the most part they've been just as welcoming, and some of them have been so intriguing, fun, a flat out blast to be with...

Is it me, or are people suddenly a lot more interesting?

I have to think a part of it is the knowledge that I won't be having conversations like these with new people in a few weeks. I won't be introduced to new people by friends I've known for a decade or more, and I won't even know for sure if they speak my language.

Maybe it's also the knowledge--or perhaps regret is a better word--that I don't have enough time to figure out if these new acquaintances could become friends as strong as the wonderful few I'm blessed enough to have. Not enough time, not enough energy to explore where I never would have hesitated otherwise. Just one more thing to add to it, then.

Hell, might even be it's just the quality of the people themselves. Lord knows I've been lucky enough to meet a few good ones in the last little while.

Whatever it is, it's just one more piece of why the thought of leaving is a whole lot of hard.

Which, of course, is exactly what I asked for.

Signing Away a Year

So it's real. The contract came in. As good a time as any to start this.

Off to China. Anqing. I don't know anything about it. I don't know any Chinese. I hardly even know how to wash my own clothes.

Kidding.

But now it comes to it, and I have to put my name down on a piece of paper that binds me to my placement in the Celestial Empire for a full year, I feel...

Not nearly as nervous as I should. But I'm sure that'll come. Because I feel woefully prepared for this... undertaking.

Worse, I can't really think of an adequate way TO prepare for it in the next three weeks. There's a lot to be done. I'll have to get a physical. Maybe some vaccinations. A visa. A master card.

Bottom line--I don't really know what I've gotten myself in to. I should be stressed out of my mind. I should be terrified. I'll be completely lost, completely out of any element I've ever been familiar with.

And that's exactly it. I can't wait for those struggles. Not, as it might first seem, because I don't respect them, but because I DO respect them. There is no way to survive this journey without growing into a stronger person. I love that.

I've been grappling with my sense of purpose for more than a decade, ethereal foe that it is, and in all that time I've never been able to find a hold. Perhaps that's because I've spent most of that time preoccupied with sports, or stifled by a cubicle, or wasting about on a couch, or drowning in a bottle of beer.

Perhaps it's because life is meant to be lived instead of merely coasted through, drifted about as if something great is just going to fall into your lap and fix everything.

In the right circumstances, to survive is enough. To endure is enough. But never to coast. Especially not when the world is set before you, not when so many others would take advantage of what you have every day. Someone wiser than I just wished I would DO more, and what else is there, really, that you CAN do?

I don't presume to know what makes life worthwhile, although I have a few ideas. I don't know what makes a person happy. But I do know what makes me unhappy, and that's letting opportunity go to waste, and life pass me by.

Well, here's to doing things. I'm signing a year away.