I was having lunch with a friend today, an older, married lady with two kids who is MUCH smarter than me. I told her all about my going-away party last night, and how walking over to it I was struck by this surliness, this sense of “I don’t want to do this trip anymore.”
Like, it’s all well and good to talk about leaving my job and my wonderful friends and the love of my life (Brooklyn, obviously) for four months, but actually doing it feels really crazy, as though I don’t realize how good I have it and why would I ever walk away from ALL THIS? Seriously, Greko, what are you looking for?
And then she told me the most amazing story. When she went into labor for the first time, with her son, her first thought was ‘eh, not today.’ She said, “I was watching a lot of The West Wing in the mornings at the time, and they were showing my favorite episode that day, and I just thought, I really do not want to do this right now. I definitely want to do it in theory, but right this second I think I’d prefer to sit on the couch and continue as is.”
And of course she loves her kids and had been looking forward to them, etc, etc. But holy shit, I love it: ambivalence. It comes with being a human.
In other words, I’m terrified, but the plane still leaves in six days.
Swing it over here, Shorty. 