March 3, 2008

• Intermission

  I finished work on Thursday, and it's a bit surreal. Friday, I slept in. Saturday, Apple and I woke up at 8:30, and after some dilly-dallying, we had breakfast at his place. (Bacon! Eggs! Toast! Juice! Lattes! Apparently some people do things like this at home as a matter of course.) Then we ran errands all day - we hit a few dive shops, went grocery shopping, and so on, then got ready and went to his friend's house for a party around 8 p.m. The party was quite civilized and low-key, and it ended at midnight - Apple and I were thinking of either going home, or going to another party some of his other friends were having. Instead, the friends we were with convinced us to go out with them to a club, where we stayed until about 4 a.m. Hit a kebab stand, then went home and went to sleep around 6. Whew, I'm getting too old for all these late nights, but they keep happening - the past month or two have been full of late nights out.

  In any case, at some point on Saturday, I thought, "Oh, no, it's Saturday, which means that tomorrow is Sunday, which means that the next day is Monday, which means... oh, right. Monday doesn't really mean anything anymore, at least for the next couple months. Oh, OK, then. Whew."

  ***

  Bonaire is booked! Actually, Apple and I booked a three-week trip the same night I posted the last entry, and Kanga and my old officemate booked the next day for a 10-day trip in the middle of our 3-week stay. A few others - 2FX, Roo, and another girl - may join at some point, as well. I'm really excited! We're renting two houses, Apple and Kanga are going to do their certification together, and we'll just hang out, dive, sleep, eat, play Uno, watch sunsets, sit on the beach, have cookouts, and just chill. All of the other dive trips I've done have been great, I've really enjoyed them, but I've never been able to cajole more than one person into joining in (timing, price, and vacation days usually get in the way), so to have four or even seven people going on a trip together will be fantastic.

  Kanga and I also booked a long weekend to go up to Latvia and Estonia, and I'll do a quick stop in Denmark, as well. That's going to get me to my 46th country - it's not looking likely that I'll reach 50 before leaving Europe. Oh well, 46 is pretty good, and I'm doing a good bit of traveling before I leave; it's just that I'm doing some repeat visits to places I've already been.

  ***

  Despite having almost three months off, I still feel like I don't have enough time to do all the stuff I need to do. I'm having a housecooling (as opposed to housewarming) party this Friday, so there are all the usual party preparations to be made. My dive gear needs to be serviced and packed. I need to see about getting new parts for my camera housing. I need to pack my stuff up and put most of it in storage with Kanga. I need to arrange for the transatlantic move. Fiver needs to be checked and OK'ed for emigration. I need to file two sets of taxes, pay my bills, and arrange for my presence here to be slowly erased - cancel my DSL and phone lines, sell my furniture, arrange for the apartment to be cleaned and painted, deregister with the authorities, get my pension payments back, and a billion other things that just don't seem like they'll fit in between all of the stuff I'd rather be doing...

  ***

  It's funny, to finally be leaving. Strange. It's always hard leaving your life behind, and I've done it several times before, but this time is going to be just as hard as the others, and maybe worse. Something about living here really intensifies your relationships with people - you have more free time and a smaller network, and so the people that you do know, you get to know very well. I've known Kanga (and then Roo) for most of the time I've been here, and it's going to be so strange to say goodbye. It's sort of like college, when you say goodbye to your roommate at the end. You know you'll still be great friends and that you'll stay in touch and see each other when you can, but it's never going to be the same kind of "Hey, it's Tuesday and I'm bored, let's watch a DVD and eat some pizza" relationship, because it just isn't possible anymore.

  And the boy thing is odd, too. I left 2FX behind when I left New York, and that was hard, but the nature of our relationship was such that we both just saw it as the best thing for me to do, so I did it. We broke up afterwards, but we remained the best of friends, and I don't regret it.

  Living here, I've sort of constantly had it in the back of my mind (or the front of my mind, sometimes) that I would be moving on and moving back, and the guys I've dated have always known that, although some accepted the idea more than others. It never particularly bothered me - I'm not sure why - and I always just assumed that I would find a job, break up, and move. Period. No long distance relationship. No "follow me back to the States." No worries and no regrets. Plenty of fish in the sea, and the fishing is better out there, anyways, right?

  Apple half-jokingly asked me last week, maybe, "Why did this have to happen?" And I half-jokingly replied, "It's karma. We both sort of screwed over our last exes. It's our turn now." D'oh.

  • 10:40 am
  • 4 Comments