Don't You Remember

Is anyone still reading this blog anymore?

I mean, it's nice to have a chronicle of sorts of the triumphs and tribulations of my almost-finished PC life, but I could have jotted down some notes in the 1 of 3 journals I never bothered to write in rather than foolishly typing into a public space. Oh well...I suppose at this point I'll continue writing for posterity's sake.

Since my last update, things have been busy (always a good thing in the PC world). After the successful spelling bee adventure (I had 18 students, 1 parent and my counterpart making the trip), I was able to celebrate a friend's birthday and retrieve medicine for what is/was either tonsillitis or strep throat. Good times! For some reason my body has a hard time adjusting in the Spring, since I usually tend to get sick around the time of the seasons changing.

The main point is that I'm alive and I have special German gargle to fight off the last vestiges of the stingy throat ache still occasionally plaguing me.

But enough of this sick talk! On to more interesting subjects...

This past weekend, my sitemate and I hosted a total of 4 new trainees in the part of their Pre-Service Training called "Job Shadowing." We had a nice group here for a few days and were able to enjoy a hike, show off our work places and bask in the trainees' unbridled optimism we lost so long ago.

Despite a small setback due to political protests and a little violence in Tbilisi which meant the trainees had to leave a day early, all in all it was a really nice weekend. A couple of days ago I had an especially surprising and fun day, as I made the acquaintance of two intrepid Swedish explorers who accompanied me and other nearby Westerners to a concert in my town. These two guys travel around driving "Rachel," a reliable old broad also known to some as a red Land Rover.

As I danced with several of my students in the town square to Beach Boys songs sung in French by some over-the-hill French dudes in leopard jackets (yikes...), I had a moment of sheer and unrelenting happiness.

These are the moments I came to live abroad for. We had a great time and I met some amazing people. Yes...this is definitely the "adventure" part of PC I like (the adventures when I have to figure out what I'm going to eat because there's no gas or electricity...not so much).

And speaking on the subject of adventures, today I realized just how little time I have left in this grand PC experiment. As school ends June 15th, I only have 2.5 more weeks of school. Then a little over a month before I make my comeback entrance at JFK in NYC (acronyms!).

I wish I could say that knowing the time will fly makes it easier, but I'd be lying if I didn't say I was antsy. Ever since I can remember, when it comes down to the end of things, I've been ready for the next step. When I graduated from high school, then college, then my first "grown up" job, then my DC job, I was always anxious to get into whatever came next. And this life milestone in some ways is worse than others, because I know I'll be saying goodbye to people and things that have been such an integral part of my life for over 2 years.

I know no one LIKES goodbyes, but I have to tell you--I hate them. If I could just slip out unseen, I would much prefer going silently in the night than endure the drawn out, sad process of recognizing the momentousness of my going and the memories I'm leaving behind. The countdowns have begun and I've already said goodbye to two friends who were dear to me this past year. People who have consumed many of my thoughts and shared in my joys and sorrows I may see a handful of times before we part ways.

We tell ourselves that our friendships are important, that we'll make time for the people we care about, and I know from past experience that's true. But I also know that realistically and logistically, I may never see some of these friends in person again. The laughs shared over a beer or a particularly rough time period will become a part of the cloth that makes up the memory of my PC experience, rather than an easily made reality.

I know the usual comforting on-the-way-home-from-school phone call will disappear like the cow parades on the street I've come to love so much. The familiarity of sharing common problems and goals from lives inextricably linked in a strange and wonderful place will fade away with time. That is a very sad thought for me, and something I know I'll miss. I worry that I may not miss it consciously--that it may exist as a discomfort in the back of my mind that I can't quite place when I feel melancholy and don't know why.

I'm trying to make sense of everything even as I try to escape it. As I prepare for the end of this journey, I'm afraid I don't know yet how to really say goodbye. The finality of it all seems too complicated and sad to express in words.

And yet I know that rationally, this ending will become like many of the other major endings I described: sad to leave, but glad to go. We carry on and eventually find a place for ourselves somewhere else, with a new group of people and adventures to sustain us until the next big move. I'm not trying to minimize the significance of this experience...just put it in its proper place.

So for me and everyone else transitioning in a big way, I'll see you in your proper place...or maybe we'll send each other postcards.