Those were the days - six months ago

In a happy update to the last message, I found my receipt for last month's rent this morning. When I got to work and recounted that stroke of luck to my colleagues, one of them said he thought maybe the call from the realtors was really intended for him anyway. He didn't say whether or not he had actually paid his rent on time (but it sounded to me like he hadn't!).

While looking for the receipt this morning, I found a journal I hadn't written in in a few months, which made for a fun impromptu trip down a fairly recent Memory Lane just before I took off for work. The journal included some of my very first thoughts on Life In Taiwan, which I wrote down before I'd even arrived here.

I wrote the first entry in the departures lounge at the Baltimore airport, when the journey was barely underway - although I had already accomplished the single hardest part: dragging all six of my bags from my old apartment to the cab, then into and through the train station in DC and off the train in Baltimore (with a lot of help from some generous Amtrak personnel) and from the station platform up to the bus-stop for the shuttle to the airport. I recall a lot of carrying two bags ten feet or so, dropping them and running back for two more, and so forth until I got to the bus-stop. Whatever emotional process I was sorting through on that morning of my departure from DC after six years was pretty much drowned in physical exhaustion and attention to the unpleasant task immediately at hand. When I finally got to the check-in, I was told just what I had expected: there would be an excess baggage fee for my luggage. No problem. I'd have happily paid three times what they charged me at that moment.

All of which is my rather wordy way of saying I was too stressed and sore to be wistful or nervous about the trip. Not until I got to the gate and settled down for the three-hour wait for boarding with my blissfully light two remaining bags, anyway.

But there lies the surprise. Re-reading the entry I wrote that morning, I was surprised at how un-sentimental I sounded about it all. There are a couple of reasons for this - no matter how many wonderful memories DC held for me, my recent experiences there had been very, very unhappy for the most part, I was delighted to be going to Taiwan no matter what I was leaving behind, I had a feeling I'd be coming back sooner or later anyhow, I was nervous about learning how to do my new job - but still, it all didn't sound much like me.

What's really funny is that I still remember writing that first entry (it has, after all, not really been that long!), and even then I knew that it was one of those experiences that would turn into a wonderfully misty memory soon enough. But even given that awareness, I can recall gazing out onto the tarmac in the chilly noonday sun and feeling...not much. I knew I'd miss my friends, of course, but several of them were also leaving DC before long anyhow (one of them was taking off that very afternoon, no less) and I'd been the one staying behind on those goodbyes dozens of times before. So there was no sense of leaving the nest or anything. No, right then, the closest I had to a profound thought was wondering how much warmer it would be in Taipei.

Sure enough, I do have some pretty fond memories of those first hours. Reading about my fears and concerns this morning, I was pleased to realize that things have worked out better than I'd dared to hope at the time. But what I recall more than anything about that day is thinking I should have some sense of being in the midst of a truly earthshattering moment of my life, but failing to work up any such thing.

That, and being glad I'd finally stowed those four bags!

Such is often the case with the really big changes in life when we're already aware that they are taking place, I guess. That sense of momentousness I was looking for must be part surprise, and there was no surprise that morning.

More thoughts on this tomorrow, unless y'all think I'm already being too indulgent! (My memories of those last hours in the USA have become quite fascinating to me, as you can see...)