Falling in love has been the most fun I've had in Sacramento. Meeting Jenny. The get-to-know-you that followed. Santa Cruz. Surviving Blogger-gate. The I Love You jitters. While I know I grew a lot during the trial-and-error of the first four-five months here, I know I've grown the most in the past two. Knowing, also, what I've accomplished in those two months--the positive changes I've made, the progress with life goals--I can't help but credit Jenny for compelling me to pursue these passions. At the same time, I see this reciprocated, I see her inspired by me, making decisions, making goals. It's this subtle teamwork that's so wonderful about us. It's really the way a relationship should exist: two parties in love, able to pursue meaning in their lives, together or separate, always encouraging, always receptive.
Jenny went away this morning.
To San Francisco, primarily, for Session--a big gathering of people with administrative positions in the Academic Senate--and a three-night stay in an all-inclusive hotel suite. She'll be back Friday.
But she also went to Korea, mentally.
She, like myself, wants to get the hell out of this country, not to escape but to experience, to say that we did, to write about it, to live it and love it and miss it, to share stories about it, to take photos of it, to meet people with other accents, in other languages, in French, in warm weather and cold, in sickness or in health.
We're young and married to the world.
She may go teach English and edit for a university in Korea with her friend Megan and she may be leaving as soon as September for six months, or a year, depending. Gone. Poof. Like a dream upon waking, as life sometimes feels after change. Not forever, of course, and not that we won't still stay in love, but then there's my own path to think about. If everything I'm planning with Sac State goes to plan, I'll be leaving with the Peace Corps next summer. Africa is our bet. That's sort of the opposite direction of Korea from here. Isn't that a neat image? Our planes leaving SMF at the same time, one toward the sunrise and the other toward its setting.
So what do you do?
You suck it up. You face it. You respect it. You knew it was coming. You're young and in love with the world and you need to see it, you need to live out there, you need to, you want to, you were made to. In the meantime, you love her like crazy, you love her like tomorrow is Summer 2012 and tomorrow you're leaving for Kenya. Do you have a choice? This is love and this is your chance to have it, so have it, and share it, and let it fill you and let it be everything that keeps you going, and if you do this you will always feel it, and you will always share it, no matter how many hundred miles or years or lifetimes separate you from her. She has painted Sacramento a brilliant bright shade and you see the world new because of her. You will love her long after you board your planes.
In the meantime, you take care of the present. You live in the present. You go to work and pay your bills and ride your bike to Oak Park for tutoring and help kids with their make-up tests and try to figure out Randall's math homework and scratchy handwriting. You write little stories and you start submitting them. You find out what test you need to take, if any, to finish enrolling in Sac State. You keep your Peace Corps representative aware of your progress. You go to the movies and you go see concerts and you have bonfires and make friends and make memories and write about them, keep them forever, share them and cherish them in years to come because these memories are wonderful and tragically momentary.
This is life and it's written and experienced by me.
As Jenny has her life, written and experienced by her.
And you, yours.
And them, theirs.
We all die with a moral of the story.
I wonder if it might be, simply: Love each other completely.
Is not that the moral we all hope our lives will leave in the minds of our readers?
- Left to Fry
WOW! This is very powerful man!
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