linear thinker, that's me.

Check, check, and check... these are the audibles in my mind as I scan the pile of sorted belongings about to escort me to Africa. I have everything I need, certainly. I have more than that, most assuredly. What I am taking to keep me company for what I anticipate will be over two years abroad? I have some essentials like, foremostly, a dictionary, some journals, and classic literature - Thoreau, anyone?. In addition, I have purchased and graciously acquired some technological gadgets that will augment the degree to which I will perceive myself as being removed from the decadence of western society (i.e. in addition to the pragmatic and nascent iPod, a notebook size solar battery charger and a super flash shortwave radio). Also, I have the standard hygiene products (Dr. Bronner's All-One), water bottles, a slough of miscellaneous forms for the bureaucracy, and a requistite amount of clothing for the anticpated social gatherings of varying formality.

I leave Monday. My bags are not yet packed. In my mind, my bags have been packed for the past year. I have known that I would be leaving for Africa this September for nearly a year. I am quite thankful to have spent this past year in Kentucky, because this year has acted as a narrowing conduit through which the maelstromic encumbrances of my life have been stripped. I have gained an evermore fervent appreciation for the bucolic state whence I came and I have forged many additional friendships with understanding people. A platitude is not what I have reached, but resolute is what I have become. I am certain of many foundational convictions of my being, and at age 25, I have never known myself to a better degree... thankfully and rightfully.

This is altogether a surreal experience for me. How do I mentally prepare myself for a two year departure? I struggle with the identities of pasts and present within myself, but I have shelved the existential apathy that has haunted me in the past. Introspection continues. What is the veneer? What is the visceral and intrepid? The lives I leave will no longer exist. The people that I bid farewell to will not be the same people that I will greet with open arms in a few year's time. I am not concerned nor resistant to the change. I am justifiably inquisitive.

To me, though, let's get on with it. Let Monday come. I'll be in Africa by Thursday. I am certain this is what I am supposed to be doing, because this is what I am doing.