Four Days

I'm leaving on Thursday. This time on Thursday I'll be on a plane. Or, waiting in an airport. In either case, I won't be here. I'm having a really weird time of it as well. There are two suitcases, a backpack and a guitar sitting in the middle of my parents' dining room.

The suitcases have (mostly) clothes, and books and random things like vitamins thrown hither and yon into them. There is no rhyme or reason to it. I have clothes in the washer and a mental list that contains more items than Jewish Law.

I'm leaving on Thursday, but it doesn't feel like it.
I mean the good news is that I'm not avoiding. The above evidence of the suitcases and everything proves that. I know I'm leaving. It's looming over me.

But it doesn't feel like I'm going for a whole year.

I realized this the other day and it's been bothering me ever since.

I don't feel like I'm going to be spending a whole year in Russia. I feel like this is just a little jaunt. But it doesn't feel like I"m going to be back in a few weeks either.

Maybe it's because I know how fast it will go? Maybe it's because I've done this before? Maybe it's because I know life goes on after you go overseas. I mean, yeah you change and the people here change, but life still goes on.

I sure hope it doesn't hit me like it did last time. Last time, as soon as I left my parents in the airport I started crying and didn't stop for three or four days. That would be terrible.

What's nice though is that all my fears and doubts that I had when I first decided to do this, as well as the ones I'd been having in recent days, have completely disappeared. I feel a deep sense of peace about this whole thing. I have visa issues. So what? If God provided me funding to go and has been with me all this time, he's certainly going to provide me with the means of working out my visa. And if not? Well it's because he wants me to work in Ukraine or another country as well as Russia and who am I to argue?

That doesn't mean everything is peachy though. Although it doesn't feel like I'm leaving, I am. And while I don't feel finality that I did last time, I still feel rather weird. It's hard to explain. I feel lonely at times. So lonely I want to cry. I came home from seeing my church family where I attended during college and was just in this weird mood. Went right up to my room. Mom came by later and asked three times if I was okay. "I will be."
"So you're not now, but you will be?"
"Yeah, I guess."

I couldn't tell her exactly what was wrong. I don't know myself. Just an underlying sadness, with a weird combination of nostalgia and anger. It's an odd combination for sure.

Hmmm... perhaps I should be preparing myself for the bi-polarness that comes with living overseas because it seems that I'm starting now...