Well, who would have believed it, but my big day finally arrived. After a last-minute, all-night, panicked packing frenzy, I found myself at the airport, well ahead of schedule, yet still, in the end, seemingly without the time for proper goodbyes. Mostly, perhaps, because it really did not seem like goodbye, not then. But later, as the plane taxied off with Janis Joplin's "Leaving on a Jet plane" crooning dramatically from my mp3 player, it finally occurred to me that the view outside my window was not one which I would be seeing again anytime soon, nor those dearly beloved faces or comfortably familiar streets. In short, it all finally became shockingly real. I was not just leaving for a brief vacation, but a small lifetime in itself… months, possibly a year, perhaps (dare I say
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