Today my best friend Suzy returned home to DC, I found out that my tenure with my company back in DC will be ending in February, and that my parents wish to retire to Cape Town.
Though I expected my job to end, it was not news I was expecting to hear so soon, nor news that I was prepared to react to. Knowing that I had work allowed me to not dwell on the inevitable financial implications I will almost certainly encounter in the future - regardless of how much prior planning I had done. Further, the news of my parents wishing to move so far away from the reality I had become used to made me feel that much more isolated here than before.
Present reality had Suzy leave me today, upcoming reality will have me severing my ties to the people I've worked with for 8 years in the near future, and the possible reality of my parents moving from the current place which I call home to a new and unknown destiny had a triple compounding effect on an existing feeling of isolation on this island which I'll be calling home for 4 years while I study. A ticket to Cape Town from Kona would be a 31 hour of travel and $2,300.
It seems ludicrously funny to consider the potential reality that to see each other we will have to meet in odd places around the world like Amsterdam, London, or even New Delhi.
Who knows where we will all be with each school break and thereafter. Present reality has me fearing for my financial future with a house that I must pay for, a precarious tenant situation, and a housing market which precludes the sale of my house without my owing money to the bank.
I'm so glad that Suzy could visit - her trip here meant more to me than I can express. It felt so strange to show her around this place - this small rock in the middle of nowhere brimming with life and energetic turmoil.
The only thing one can rely on is that life is change. Stasis is the end. While there is movement, it isn't the end. The Yang interchanges into the Yin, and the Yin interchanges into the Yang in a constant interplay. The cyclical game of life continues its play while we humans settle into new routines and seek to control our environments, taking for granted the people, places, and things that define our lives. We continue to plot our lives in terms of making small carefully measured adjustments we call 'improvements', 'betterments', or 'differences'. All along, our illusion of a controlled life with expectations of how things will be can change into any alternate phantasmagoric fable at any second.
Attachment to any reality in particular will always result in pain. This same theory is expressed in Chinese Medicine wherein any pain in the body results from the stasis of blood, or Qi.
Pictures will follow.
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3 comments:
Mik - The Cape Town option is an option that requires more than thinking band wishing. I am in Jo'burg today. Last few days O spent in the Cape area and was reminded of the awesomeness of the living experience here, though not without the unexpected. But, I am a realist to a point. Even-though past sixty, I still have plenty to think about. Going so far away is not comforting us since the biggest treasure is only 6 hours away, and not 12-13 hours that it might be. Togetherness is something I do not intend to give up for self interests. This is only a reflection on a Saturday afternoon. More words will flow when we meet in about two weeks in Hawaii. Miss you, and love you. --R
Thank you for such an amazing experience the past 10 days. Seeing you again was incredibly healing and I desperately needed it. You are doing a wonderful thing there and I am so happy to have been a part of your daily life, even for just a short time. I miss you terribly already and am now counting down the six weeks... :)
meep!
Wow, I had no idea re: the work scenario. What's going on with that? I hope you'll keep in touch anyway, some of us still like you!
Robin
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