Transatlanticism

I'm writing again.  I say this so strongly because I realize now that my life is changing, that everything is transient, and all of those people that I took for granted are suddenly moving, crossing airways and freeways, continents and oceans.  We will soon all be worlds away, and therefore, I write -- to keep in touch, to keep updated, and to recognize that sometimes phone calls don't happen as often as they ought.

Graduation.  A fairly accurate representation of the wackiness of my department.

I'm saying goodbye to a lot of people and places.  Today held a lot of endings for me, and I don't know when I will see a lot of these people again.  I think that's a necessary evil; every beginning is also an ending, in a way.  That doesn't mean it isn't sad.  I have a photo print of Pike's Market I bought last year hanging next to my bed and I look at it every evening, hardly daring to think "I will live there soon".  And - no regrets.  The decision is made.  I'm going.

Ahh, transition.  That terrifying whisper of "change" echoes throughout my life currently, in almost every way imaginable.  I live in the In-Between.  I wait, sometimes more patiently than others, but waiting nevertheless, waiting for life to please, please begin.  Or to please, please, slow down.  The Bell Jar got it right when it says that insanity is wanting two mutually exclusive things at once.  Two months is an awfully long, yet short, time.  How can one want to leave, yet want to stay so badly?

And so?  I write.  I write because I must, because there is nothing else, because words are tethers holding us to life.

Still, the world turns on.