Monday, September 30, 2013

Woobie Nights

I am on the train from Albany to New York Penn station where I will transfer by monorail to Newark Airport.  From there I will leave on a plane to Brussels.  From there I will hop a flight to Kigali.

I have my passport, my vaccination documents, my letter from CNRG saying I can come there, puzzle books, all the chargers I need, a camera, in fact…I don’t think I have forgotten anything.  One might say that I “forgot” to turn off the coffee pot, but, in fact, it turns itself off after 2 hours.  Not a thing we have to worry about anymore.

I utterly cannot believe that I am on a trip to Africa.  This, the culmination of all of my dreams and obsessions and study for most of my life, seems so meaningless suddenly in light of what leaving my husband at the train station was like.

He is the love of my life and I cannot believe that I am on this adventure without him.  This is just the sort of thing he would love to do.  My hope is that future adventures will be shared.  That he will have the sort of job that he can take leave from relatively often and join me somewhere.

Anyway, parting, for us, was a great deal harder than we thought it was going to be.  I thought I would be excited to go to Rwanda after all this time.  But, for now I am numb with the stomach clenching anxiety of being parted from my partner, my teammate….my woobie.

If you would like to know what a woobie is, you should watch the film Mr. Mom.

Or look at this photo and know immediately…

 


Look for future updates as I make each leg of the trip and hopefully, somewhere along the way, I am going to write something about what exactly it is that I intend to do in Kigali.  Expect to hear more from me in the coming days about my woobie-less nights.

4 comments:

  1. Safe travels! We will be thinking of you. Hard to believe but it will soon all be a memory and you will return to "normal" life. Enjoy the adventure!! :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. It's blowing my mind that you are going, that today is the day.

    ReplyDelete
  3. saddening, scary, but exciting times, lacy! what a wonderful life you have made with conor that you can write that being with him feels more important than leaving to pursue "the culmination of all of my dreams and obsessions and study for most of my life." wow. i am struck by the fact that he is a very lucky gentleman. safe travels!

    ReplyDelete
  4. That sure is one lucky guy! ;-)
    I was so sad when I drove away from the train station that morning a week ago! And excited, too, but the more salient feeling was loneliness and a small part of fear that something would go wrong and I'd never see you again. I just kept reminding myself that this is what you must do and I tried to focus on the positive. I'm so proud of you!

    ReplyDelete