2010-10-05 - 10:53 a.m.
It's about 10am right now as I sit down to collect my thoughts. I don't have much else to do today. I'm at the hotel, but not leaving till around 3 or 4 to go to the airport. It's too late to do anything I may have forgotten to do (I can't believe I forgot my hat. Dammit. Now what am I going to wear with my trenchcoat?), and anything I did forget that needs to be done when I arrive will just have to be improvised. Or I can depend on the kindness of strangers to help me with anything I can't figure out.
By the way, anyone thinking of moving to a foreign country, don't. Just don't. The amount of red tape and preparations that need to be endured will have you tearing your hair out long before you can even think, "Ok, now it's safe to book a plane ticket."
Bah, that's just nerves talking. I'm a bit on edge. I keep worrying I've forgotten something (not like, leaving the light on in the bathroom levels of forgetting something, but more like, left a fire burning in the bathroom levels of forgot).
Plus I have to give up my Droid for awhile. Whistler is going into a box (with his battery out) and not coming out for a few months. Quoth Paul, "What are you going to do without the internet at your fingertips?"
"Ambition will take you far, but who will you be when you get there?" -Garrison Keillor
The bigger question is what am I going to do without a decent MExican restaurant only a couple blocks away and my beloved comic books thousands of miles away?
I'll get by, somehow. I'll figure something out. I generally do.
Later today I board a plane bound for first Dublin, then connecting to Birmingham, and I don't honestly know when I will be back. I do plan to come back, rest assured. You haven't seen the last of me. I just....get this urge sometimes.
Recently I heard a close friend of mine lamenting that she felt like she was wasting her life because she hadn't been doing any of the things she'd always dreamed of doing. And I can empathize. Every day I've ever spent at a job I was only meh about, I thought about all the things I could have been doing- the places I want to see, the things I want to parachute off of, the bulls I want to run with, the languages I want to learn to swear in, the countries where I can be considered cool just because I'm white and/or American....
That part I can totally get. But there's a catch, that I learned when I left a few years ago, and that is that while you are off doing all those things and having all that fun? There's going to be a little part of your mind that thinks every day about all that you're missing out on with your friends back home. The birthdays and parties, the late night talks. I'm gonna miss a lot of Wednesday night games (someone in that game please look up the poem "The Empty Chair: Eulogy of a Gamer", by the way). I've come to the conclusion that I am a person who will always be at least a little restless. no matter where I am, I wind up thinking at least a bit about what I'm missing elsewhere. Don't get me wrong, I'm not regretting this decision (although I am nervous as hell) and I'm not saying that I can never be happy. I'm actually happy a lot (though part of me misses being an angry youth. go figure). But a cost of that decision is that I will miss a lot with you all in that time. Relations will change and memories will be made and I won't be there.
I need to be in two places at once. And so, with that in mind, I am embarking on a mission to clone myself. Then i can be in both places without yearning to be anywhere else. And won't the world be better off with two of me? That's twice the Ken! Twice the fun! Twice the excitement! Twice the hair! (that's worth the cost of admission alone). It'll be like Multiplicity, only interesting and good.
In all seriousness, I'm gonna miss everyone. Even you. That's really all I had to say, but I'm too long-winded to just say that. Plus I feel like since I take so long between entries here that I should say a bit more than just, "I will miss you. Goodbye for now." but, yeah, that'd do it. I'm gonna leave you with a song that's not a Gin Blossoms or a Hank Williams. IT's not even a song that's ever been commercially released (that I know of) and I am not picking it because it's a good song (though it is) but because it just fits.
Goodbye from the US. I'll say hello from the UK soon.
Ken
Worked out that I've probably made a mistake
For each thing I've done right
Just keeping it even at times seems to take
Every ounce of my might
I might have found gold, instead of dust
I might have found someone to hold in trust
I may seem hard, in harder times
Even though my colors have faded I stay in the lines
And I can't be the sun cause I'd burn
But sure as I leave, I will return
The moon is too big and too bright
I can't shine like stars but I'll be your satellite
I'm ready, I'm ready, I've already torn
All my pieces apart
Be steady be steady instead of my usual
Fits and stars
My heart has been worn, but it ain't broke
It may hiccup and cough black smoke
It may be old, but it still runs
Yeah my love's got laces that won't come undone
And I can't be the sun cause I'd burn
But sure as I leave, I will return
The moon is too big and too bright
I can't shine like stars but I'll be your satellite.
your satellite
Jupiter's too heavy to hold
Mars is too cold, Venus too hot
I'd try for Saturn's beautiful rings
I am none of these things
And I'm glad that I'm not
Cause you'd expect a lot
I can't be the sun cause I'd burn
But sure as I leave, I will return
The moon is too big and too bright
I can't shine like stars but I'll be your satellite.
�
