I'll be putting this blog on hiatus pretty soon.
I feel as though I'll be putting my life on hiatus pretty soon, actually.
It's been a hell of a week.
On Sunday, Bess died. I am so grateful to her medical caretakers, to my family and to Whomever that we were given warning, that I had the luxury of time. I am so grateful that I got the chance to say goodbye to her, this wonderful amazing crazystong ballsy woman who has inspired so much of what I've done and who I am. I will miss her.
On Wednesday, my company told me I will be spending the next year in Afghanistan. It's not as involuntary as that sentence makes it sound- this was an opportunity, and it was one I was open to. It's just such an incredibly short- notice thing: we plan to have the team in place by mid- February, as it stands right now.
I've closed the business for the year, obviously; I can't ask Sam to run that while I'm gone. He'll have so much on his hands as it is; these situations are always so much worse for the people left behind. I have the luxury of knowing where I am and what is happening; he is left with the wondering, and the waiting. If you're a member of the Sock or Fiber clubs, I sent you an email about how we'll be handling that- if you haven't gotten it, please comment and I'll get that sorted.
The team will be made up of myself and some friends, and that's something else I am grateful for. Imagining taking on this change and the inherent transitions alone gives me the shivers.
It's a positive mission- positive in that I will have the opportunity to do good things, help people, to be part of a solution, and that's a goodness.
It is all so massively overwhelming, though; it's moving so fast, it's so much change and there is so very much to do and so little time to do it all in.
I have wanted to travel, to go places- strange places, unconventional places- my entire life. I've never dreamed of a holiday in the Bahamas; my dreams have always taken place in Cambodia, or Africa, in Antarctica or Mauritius. I'm told there are places in Afghanistan that look like the surface of the moon, and that excites me. Part of me feels as though this trip was always inevitable, and that this is right, and good.
Part of me is also terrified; afraid of the usual things, like injury and death, nervous to be leaving my family, friends and country behind- so far behind, thousands of miles behind. Afraid of the time, too; a year is a long time. Most of all, though, I'm afraid of how this will change me.
I've taken some leaps in my life- huge, crazy leaps. Most of those leaps were taken when I was younger, crazier, dumber, and when I had much less, if anything, to lose. I took those leaps and at the time it was exhilarating! It was an adventure. And in those times I only ever thought of how the situation would change--- I don't think I knew then how much those leaps would change me. They did- they changed me more than I could ever have expected. I am not the girl I was before I made those choices, and I can never go back to being her.
This feels like one of those decisions, those mindset altering decisions, and it's scary because this time, I can see it coming. I don't think I've been so nervous about anything since I became pregnant with Kiddo.
I don't know what else to say about that. It's huge. My team lead and I, we go back years together, and when we talk about this we don't talk about our feelings, yet. We joke and make arrangements and we are very, very busy, and I feel as though on some level we are busy being busy for each other. I'm not ready to talk about how scared I am with him, because I'm afraid it will make it bigger instead of diminishing it. We make arrangements and plans and we talk about how our spouses and children are coping, and how we hope they will support each other. We joke about how we'll be in great shape coming home, because there's little to do out there but work and work out. We discuss boots.
My best friend, he leaves with us, too, although when we stop off in Iraq for two weeks he'll be staying there. I wish he were staying here, in Maryland, to look after my family the way I know he would, but there's comfort in knowing we'll be in the same sort of world for this year. He and I aren't talking about it yet, either, but at least we can do it with a wink; we avoid it deliberately, explicitly, for now.
While I am out there I will be running a separate blog, here. I'll be posting images and updates as much as I can- something to keep some sort of contact with the people I love, a wider and more continuous stream of communication than I might be capable of if I stuck to email and phone alone. Anyone and everyone is welcome to read.
(crossposted to my livejournal, in slightly edited form)
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cheerful
anxious
calm
excited
