Goodbye For Now

There are few moments in a persons life that seem truly pivotal. That is not to say that there are not times, here and there, where circumstances seem to culminate in a moment of meaning. Every now and then a realization occurs, a circumstance changes, we start a new job, break up with a significant other, or have some sort of realization. Yet despite these more minor moments of varying intensity, there is very rarely a time in which ever single aspect of ones life is changing all at once.

Now is one of those times for me. The last moment I remember feeling quite so drastic was the day I moved out of my parents house and into the dorms at the beginning of my freshman year of college. A that time I left my security net and the only home I had ever known. I left every friend I had ever known for a completely new city that I knew nothing of and where I knew no one. It was intense and terrifying and exciting all at once.

Once again I am leaving behind everyone I have ever known for a city I know nothing of. Except this time instead of being a mere hours drive from my comfort zone, it is literally on the other side of the planet. I am moving to Seoul, South Korea. I do not know a single person in this city, I am not familiar with the food in this city, and I do not even speak the language. Once again I am filled with a feelings of intensity, and terror. My plane is set to leave in just over four hours as I write this, and yet it still has yet to truly sink in. I don't know anything at all except for the inescapable truth that everything in my life is about to change.

I finished packing my bags just as turtle got home. I had a moment to walk around the house and say goodbye to things. My room, the basement, the living room, my favorite chair, the giant television that I never watched, my cat...

I was never very verbal with my cat. Some people talk to their animals. I fed him, pet him, loved him, massaged him occasionally, played with him... But I never talked to him very much. As I scratch his head for the very last time, I couldn't help but wonder how this has affected him. What if he's less socialized because of it? What if he is more distant to humans or less able to understand us because he never grew accustomed to our verbal nature?

I think it is probably the nature of things to question everything when all things are suddenly outside your realm of affect. We naturally put off action over and over again because we tend to assume there is always more time. Then, finally, when time is out, we at that moment evaluate and analyze every insignificant action we have ever taken, questioning if we could have/should have done things differently.

As I am preparing to leave in four hours, as everything is getting ready to change, there is only one thing I truly wish I had done differently. I wish I had loved you more. All of you, anyone who is reading this. Because if you are reading this, I know it is because you have loved me. And as much as I am sure I have loved you back, I wish, at this moment, that I had done it more. In this time of reflection, my determination is that loving is the most worth while and fulfilling thing a person can do. And while I have done quite a bit of that in the past few years, I haven't done nearly enough.

-Love, Mongoose