at laaaaaaaaast.. my visa.. has come along! (...& i'm scared)

that day is finally here that day is finally here that day is finally heereee... (cred Flo Rida. word.)

my visa for Spain has arrived. and i am so excited. but also, paralyzed with fear. the last thing i expected when i finally got the envelope was dread to wash over me.  and it's not the experience of going to a foreign country where i will be all alone and know no one and have to find a place to live and have to be faced with the task of teaching a group of kids who will not understand anything that i am saying (for the first time ever no less!) and have to live in a small town which i'm not used to and not have a means of reliable transport to get the hell out of there once in a while.. no.. no, see.. all of that is wildly exciting! it's an adventure! yes a crazy scary adventure that i have never known and will likely botch up a few times but still.. it's extraordinarily inviting to me! [of course i did panic when i first found out where i'll be living (the small isolated town part) but as soon as i got used to the idea it suddenly seemed appealing again. this location was my 2nd choice after all!]

what scares me, what sends that intense dread into my heart and leaves my bones rattling and my insides feeling hollow is leaving Marcus for 7 months.

i haven't felt such panic in a while. it's fair to say life was "easy" for the past few months. but as i said to Marcus the other night after we watched The 11th Hour (documentary by L. DiCaprio about earth's demise. gloomy stuff. brighter at the end but i fell asleep by then. it was very late, ok? or maybe it was my self defense mechanism. perhaps i'm digressing a bit?) "Easy is boring!" (come to think of it a wise amiga of mine said this once.) our convo went like this: (i was distraught over the rapid degeneration of our planet) 

E: Nobody cares.

M: It's easier not to care.

E: But life isn't meant to be easy! Americans all want the easy way, but easy is boring! That's why I'm trying to make my life more difficult. By going to Spain for 7 months. I don't want to leave you, but I do want to venture into a new foreign environment in which I can learn and grow! Isn't that better than easy?

So my point is, as terrifying as it is to leave the love of my life with whom I have been with every single day for the past few weeks.. as absolutely nauseating as that is for me.. It would be worse if I did not go. I would never forgive myself. I would never fulfill a dream that I've held on to for the past 3 years. That's not to say such a decision would be good for everyone, but I want to see the world and learn a hundred new things a day and have a million different experiences in my life and live lots of different lives like arnold swartzeneckerdigger!

And I'm not really trying to make my life more difficult.. just more challenging. Challenges force us to do things differently, expand our minds, our comfort zones.. improve ourselves. There is so much good that can come out of this.

The Buddhists say that love transcends time and space. And I am so attached to my love that if I can do without it's physical manifestation for 7 months it will only serve to strengthen it. Love without possession, without attachment. That is the kind of love I want for us.

That's not to say I'm not still scared. I'm freaking terrified!!! But as a wise person once said.. "Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway."

e