The Last Goodbye

After the medium sized blow out of my PCS party, I still had about a million chores to do before I left the rock.  I thought I was on top of things, but as my final days proved, clearly, I wasn't.  AT.  ALL.  After the whole Pohnpei flight debacle,SL had remarked that it was funny that I was only worried about my plans for the party and not the larger logistics of moving halfway around the world.   I can only say now that she was entirely right, and the only reason that I wasn't more upset was because I had no fucking clue what I was doing or what the coming days would entail.

I won't bore you with details, but that last week was one of the worst of my life, and the last day was too terrible to even remember.  Who knew that packing up would be like that?!?  I sure didn't.  There were a lot of good things about those days, though.  I feel very lucky that I was granted a little extra time to spend with friends and with my island. N Pance threw my "Last Night" celebration at her boatshack, and once again everyone (who could) came through for me and turned out to wish me one final goodbye.  It was everything I could have asked for.

When I finally got to the airport on the 16th, I was physically and emotionally drained.  I felt blank for most of my goodbyes; like my departure was an event so large that my emotions couldn't encompass it.  I stayed just that little bit too long, though, and when someone's eyes started to well up, all of a sudden all five of us girls were in tears, and I was almost sobbing (And, yes, I cried all the way to Majuro.  It was completely pathetic).  It meant so much to me that they were all there, and I couldn't bear the thought of leaving any of them.  I sometimes still feel like I've subconsciously convinced myself that I'm on a very long vacation and that the real reckoning is yet to come.

I can't imagine the path that my life would have taken if I had not come to Kwaj, and I don't want to.  I feel like Kwaj was the making of me; every minute I spent there seems impossibly dear to me now.  I know I won't ever forget it.