Time Flies

This may be long.

Have you ever heard the saying you can't go home again?

I think about that sometimes.

This morning, I woke up and, after a few seconds, realized that I now have almost exactly one week left in Florida before heading to Philadelphia and then flying out to South Africa. One week. Time flies.

Thinking about this made me home sick. Not the watered down, back of your mind desire interlaced with glimpses of old family or friends. No, I'm talking about a gut wrenching, real pain for a place that may not exist anymore, if at all. I have only felt this longing a few times before; the one time I remember most is the first day after moving into the college dormitory. It was the day I realized that life, for better or for worse, had abruptly changed and no matter the circumstances, could never change back to what it was. What I knew. What had seemed to finally become familiar, just as it ended.

That's how I felt today. For me, real homesickness has a very unusual symptom: a specific, vivid memory, of when I was about three years old, playing with pebbles behind my grandmother's house in Lake Worth. I remember trying to count all the pebbles I could fit between my fingers (I still do this. However, that's irrelevant to the story). I remember hearing an ambulance siren go off near the street. I don't know why it's this memory, but it always is. It fades quickly as I motivate myself, but the faintest lingering shadow remains.

What scared me is that I have become homesick before I have even left home. But what is home, really? The memories that I have from that day, as a three year old child, remain attached. That house is no longer there. The woods, last I had heard, had been torn down for new development. What I remember, what I can see in my mind, is no longer there. Perhaps that is what makes it real homesickness: not a longing for distant place or people, but a biting grief for a life and existence that no longer exists, and cannot again.

College has been wonderful to me. I remember thinking, after graduating high school, how amazed I was at the growth I had experienced in the last two years, with the close friends I had made (2004-2006). College has been that growth a hundred times over. To learn about yourself, to see your abilities and shortcomings and the minute details that make you unique amongst the world, is a humbling, humbling experience.

To write about what I've learned, and my own fledgling philosophy of the world nurtured by those experiences, is another blog post entirely. I may get around to it, may not. If you're ever interested though, I can always bore your ear off talking about it. Few things make me happier than contemplating the concept of existential purpose with others.

One thing I will say is that, as part of my philosophy, the most important (well, second most important) facet is to always grow, to try and understand the circumstances of others from their perspective and withhold judgement. This is why I joined the Peace Corps. I wanted to see culture from the culture's vantage, and not my own. Walk a mile in their shoes is cliche. That doesn't mean it's not true.

I could go on, but if you've read this far, you're already more patient than I could be. I'll finish off with this food for thought. I'm not religious (this is another post as well, or discussion if you'd like). However, I've read a lot of work by C.S. Lewis, the author of the Narnia series, and a devout philosopher of Christian thinking. One parable he offered for growth in life is that of a child in the womb: would the child choose to leave if they had a chance? The womb is warm, it is safe, food is provided. The space is comfortable, and the baby understands it. Outside, the world is strange. It is large, uncomfortable, and does not provide. Yet the opportunity for richer experience is so much greater still that life without birth could not really ever be considered life at all. The infant could never grow, it could never understand. As C.S. Lewis says, the parable fails only in that the infant has no choice but to be born. Often in our lives, he says, we do have the choice when opportunites for growth, at the expense of an existence we understand, arise. What would we choose?

That is how I feel now. I'm afraid, it's true. But if the opportunity to serve abroad enriches my experience and understanding of the world, that may just make it worth it. I leave home, specifically Gainesville, knowing that if I came back someday, the place I knew and understood would probably be gone. If not in location, than at least in the people and the meanings and feelings associated with the places I knew.

As Humphrey would say, we'll always have Gainesville.

I love all of my friends very much; it's the feeling that sends homesickness packing. With the internet, Skype, Facebook, on and on, connectivity stays constant. Our experiences change, but those who matter most, who care about me not because of my actions, choices or circumstances, but only because it's me, somehow always stick around.

You have been part of my life, and will continue to be so, no matter where our paths lead. You mean the world to me. :)

I'll try and stave off the sentimental drivel before I get too weepy. I don't always cry, but when I do, I prefer dos equis. Thanks for listening...feels good man.

It's been a RREAAALLL slice, Hercules.

- Monaghan