Why are those words hard to say, and unbelievably harder to believe? To leave, to be so separate from people, in this age, in this world, feels impossible. We are constantly connected to one another, via internet, cell phone and still, strangely enough, human contact. Can we only miss the people we lack the human connection, or do we have to remove ourselves completely from every point of communication to effectively miss someone? More than a month before I even leave, I am aware of the hole in my chest, making it bit by bit harder to breathe deep, and growing as I anticipate missing the people I care about most. Each time I say goodbye, I hug a person a little bit longer. I hold them a little bit tighter. As though if I squeeze tight enough, hold hard enough, hope long enough, I can take that person with me. Those people with me. Even just a little bit of them.
I'm willing my people to survive me. I'm willing the connections, the friendships to last upon my return. It's not as though I'm dying - I'll only be gone for two years. I will be back. I love this place, these people too much to leave forever. I've discovered that already. Yet, some treat me as though I'm dying. As though I've been crippled with a disease. The disease of leaving.
Some will not mention my impending departure. We won't talk about it, unless I broach the subject. And even then, the ideas and the sentences are short, curt, as though we have begun talking politics or death. To them, my last day in the United States is the day I die. And they would prefer to ignore it to save me from the pain.
Others chose the opposite tactic. "What do you want to do before you leave?" They expect a list. A list of my final acts, of the things I wish to do before I die. My bucket list. When I say simply that I wish to spend as much time with my family and friends, I'm boring. They wish to hear of pre-adventure adventures. Of learning to fall instead of waiting to fly.
I find myself reminding friends and family, but most of all strangers, that I will be coming back. This is not a life sentence. It is two years and three months. Even if it were a lifetime in Panama, which is too far to plan, even for me, I would be able to come back for times.
The hardest part of each of these interactions is the reminder that I will miss people. I will miss my friends, my family. My dog. I can't say it yet, not with the effect I desire. Not with the true meaning of the words. I've said it to a few people yet, and the reactions are always different, but they are never serious. Friends with whom there is already distance, we say it emphatically, with truth. But the people I still see regularly, the meaning is lost in the togetherness. It's been laughed at, it's been teased, it's been ignored. But never is it understood. Or if it is, it's pushed down until it can be ignored.
I will miss you. I do miss you. Believe me. Miss me back?
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