Faaaaaaaaaaar away

Eventually, with any move more than a few blocks across town, it hits me. Some of the first excitement upon arriving in a new city fades as a sinking feeling washes over me. I'm 3,000 miles away from friends and family.

I've moved more times than I could count since I turned 9, but I think it's just as painful every time to lose the relationships I've worked so hard to build and maintain. As my soon to be departed roommates can attest, I need to be intimately connected to at least a few people all the time. Jay (one of my roommates) once asked me, jokingly, Do you consider it a good day if you don't have a deep conversation? For the record, Jay, no I don't.

It's been hard to find a good time to call while working full time and living 3 time zones away from most of my friends and family. For the most part, I just stopped talking to some of my closest college buddies and to Betsy, my sister, while she was in the country of Jordan (which I eventually realized was 10 time zones east). Living miles and miles away from Roe, my girlfriend, has stretched our relationship almost to the breaking point for the past 15 months while she was in Uganda (10 time zones east) then in Indiana (3 time zones east) and now in Vallejo, California (6 hours drive North).

Most of my roommates have had 3 or 4 visitors from home or college come to visit them during our year here. They've told me how much that helped them deal with the distance from loved ones, but I think that just makes me feel a little crestfallen since only Roe has been able to visit me all year. There's so much to see and do here! I wish you could catch a glimpse of the past 11 months of life.

So to my girlfriend, parents and sister, many relatives, college buddies, partners in crime at the Farmer's Market, volunteers, and coworkers who have taken the time to get to invest in me during my time in a far away land, thank you. I couldn't have survived here without you.