Saturday, July 30, 2005

Packing day!

The big day is here! Time to pack everying up. We won't drive to Cleveland until tomorrow, but there is a lot to do between now than then.

I'll be unplugging the internet connection in a few minutes so I can return the equipment to my ISP.

As my running teammates used to say before a particularly brutal workout, I'll see you on the other side...

Mood: Anxious, excited.
Song: Acoustic Alchemy, "The Alchemist"; Patrick Park, "Something Pretty"; Aerosmith, "Dream On"

Thursday, July 28, 2005

Sleep

Wow, I feel better. I was planning to get up this morning to see the Washington Monument, but that meant I would have needed to get up at 7:30 to go wait in line for tickets. No thank you. Instead I slept in and dedicated today to packing.

Sleep really does help with the pre-moving anxiety. And I'm sure I'll feel even better once I make a lot of progress on packing today.

Boxes and tape, here I come.......

Everything You Leave Behind

Hmmmm. The emotionally difficult part of moving is starting to set in. I've been trying to get away from it for a long time, trying to fill my schedule with as many activities as possible so I don't have to think about moving. But now it's very, very close. And I have to deal with it.

I'm not really sure why this move is so difficult. (pause) I suppose that's not entirely true. I have a pretty good idea of why it's different. When I left California, I was desperate for a change of location. I love northern CA, but it was time for me to leave. Overall, it wasn't that hard. (I think?) I was in Baltimore for 10 months -- long enough to meet people in my Hopkins program, but not really long enough to feel established. I was really excited to move to DC, and Baltimore was close enough that I could go back and visit if I wanted to. I think that moving down to DC wasn't too hard emotionally. But now? Now I'm happy in DC. I feel settled, I have a nice group of friends, I enjoy(ed) my job, etc. I have no reason to leave...except for the fact that I have a great opportunity to start a completely new career. I'm wishing that I had deferred school another year, but I'm pretty sure that I would have regretted that decision once I got sick of work...probably by October or November.

Timing is everything in life, a friend wrote to me the other day. True. I've wanted to go to medical school for years and years now, so I should be excited that I finally have that opportunity. Now that I have the chance to go, however, I'm tortured by the fact that I have to leave after getting settled for the first time in two years. Realistically speaking, I feel professionally settled for the first time...ever? My job at Stanford after graduation was a good experience for me, but "rewarding" certainly isn't the first word I would associate with it. At Lewin, I felt like I was producing high-quality work, learning consistently, and establishing a solid base of professional experience. I also feel socially and emotionally settled; I'm more comfortable with my current friends in DC than with many of the people I knew at Hopkins last year. There are also people in DC who I've known just a few months -- or even less, in a few cases -- who I would get to know better if I just had more time.

I think that loneliness is the major feeling I have right now. I'm not really sure why -- I haven't left DC yet, so it seems like I shouldn't be missing people yet. But I've already said a lot of goodbyes, and many of them feel incomplete. The good news is that I checked flights from Cleveland to DC and found that they're only ~$120 or so. Not too bad for a long weekend visit.

As usual, sleep will probably help me feel better about things. Let's hope.

Mood: Lonely, anxious, frustrated. Cheerful, eh?
Song: Coldplay, "White Shadows" and "Fix You"

Monday, July 25, 2005

One small step...

Friday was my last day of work. Saturday was my first day on the beach in many, many months, and today marked the start of my final week in DC...for now, at least.

Now what do I do? I have a week until I move. I'd like to avoid thinking about my departure for as long as possible. It doesn't mean that I won't start packing or prepare to leave, but I'll feel better if I can avoid thinking about the people in DC who I won't see for a long time. With that in mind, I'm going to visit the Air & Space Museum tomorrow (the Dulles annex, for those of you who are familiar with it) and then tour the Capitol on Wednesday.

I actually feel better about leaving DC now that I'm done with work. I feel like it's the first small step towards trading this reality for another one.

Thursday, July 21, 2005

Sine Qua Non

I'm going to miss a lot of people in DC, many of whom I don't know nearly as well as I would like. Here's a toast to missing your friends and longing to see people again....it's okay to feel bad if it's for all the right reasons. This speech reminds me of that truth.


"Love is life's longing for itself, says the Prophet, in a book by Kahlil Gibran. For me, that comes the closest to explaining why we love you -- which is why we are working in this school district, why is why we are in this world. Because most of us -- teachers, principals, secretaries, coaches, administrators, patents, volunteers -- are not here for the money or the intellectual challenge or because we have no other choice; we are here for love.

"I myself did not sign on to this job for love. I signed on to the school board to pursue and social and political ideal. Three years later I have met with little success in that regard, but I gained something else instead. I have learned at gut level what I had known only in theory: that tangible results and official accomplishments are not the only measure of success in work and in life.

"The first years I was on the board I met with a group of Lakeridge kids to talk about school issues. These students came to my house once a month to share stories, ask questions, offer ideas; there were savvy and insightful and often drop-dead funny, open an generous, honest and thoughtful, and -- most amazingly -- they trusted me and each other. They taught me, by example, what I was really here for, and it wasn't the academic task. I was here for them, and for me, and for the connection between us. I was here for love.

"Caring, helping, supporting one another; feeling sympathy, affection, excitement; sharing a personal connection, being on the same wavelength: love is the sine qua non, the essential element, without which nothing we do has meaning or purpose or lasting value.

"But of course, love is not just warm and fuzzy, like a Hallmark card or a Meg Ryan movie -- as you probably know, it can be 10 parts pain to 1 part pleasure. No, it is both reward and punishment for being alive, for getting involved, for leading with your heart. I said to my friend, 16-year old Alexis, "I've decided to talk about love at graduation. Tell me something about love, Alexis." "Love," she says, "it sucks." So I had to give Alexis a copy of The Velveteen Rabbit -- we education people are always giving people books -- wherein the Skin Horse places the pain of love in its proper context, the context of being real.

When a child loves you for a long long time," the Skin Horse says, "not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."
"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful.
"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up, or bit by bit?"
"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen to toys who break easily, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But those things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can'y be ugly, except to people who don't understand."


"Which is to say, we are here because we need you as much as you need us -- you make us glad and proud, exhausted and used up -- you make us Real.

"Love is life's longing for itself. And we see our lives reflected in yours; in your incessant guitar-playing, your interminable phone conversations, your obsessions and idiosyncrasies...we see ourselves reflected in you, in your excuses and apathy and infuriating procrastination, in your heartbreaking misery and despair, in your painfully familiar self-consciousness and shyness, in your stubbornness, your impatience, your hopefulness when the odds are terrible, in your disappointment with the world, in your screw-ups and failures, in your energy and determination and fundamental goodness -- you remind us of nobody like ourselves. And thus you keep us connected -- hopeful, vulnerable, and still believing in love.

"So. I recommend that you stay open to taking the emotional venture, the personal risk, that you stay open to life and to love. Imperfect as it is, painful as it can be, it still comes back more than anything else ever will. When your heart lurches, trust it -- it knows the work you should be doing, the risk you should be taking, the person you should be getting to know.

"And if you remember nothing else from high school, not the Pythagorean Theorem or the taxonomic classifications, remember this: you are loved. That's why we are here. And everyone single one of you will be sorely missed -- as the Skin Horse said, it hurts sometimes."

Susan Blackman
Lakeridge High School graduation
June 5, 1997

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Reflection on 12 months in DC

I started this post about three weeks ago. "One month left in DC," I wrote. Now it's down to 10 days. And I'm still not ready to leave.

As I wrote in the first post...Now that I've told my coworkers, I can say it on here -- I'm moving to Cleveland, Ohio to start medical school at Case Western Reserve University (aka "Case").

The last month has been pretty complicated, to say the least. I'm making a major life transition so I've been reflecting on my DC experience as well as my entire East Coast experience over the last two years.

  • This year I've been frustrated with the people I know from Johns Hopkins; it seems like many of my friendships have deteriorated and that I'm not really in touch with that group of people anymore. I'm used to maintaining friendships pretty well, so I'm not thrilled by the fact that these don't seem to be lasting. I'm developing some good friendships with people at work, but the day after tomorrow is my last day on the job.

  • It's a cliche, but it's true -- I feel like I just got here. More specifically, I feel like I just got settled. After spending months on med school applications and now having much of life, I finally feel like I have a solid network of friends, a job I enjoy, and a city I understand relatively well. And now, of course, I have to leave.

  • Dating. After going on a respectable number of so-so dates, I seem to have finally figured things out in that regard. Or at least I've remembered how dating works. And now I get to leave and start anew.


I'm already planning to return to DC next summer to work on research for school. I'm expecting just a tiny bit of separation anxiety. Not a good sign!

(sigh) I'm sure I will look back in a month and laugh about how stressed I was about everything. I'm excited about school and am sure it will be a great experience, but for now I'm just sad to be leaving DC.

Mood: Nervous, excited, worries, a little overwhelmed.
Songs: Jason Mraz, "Wordplay" / Carbon Leaf, "What About Everything?" / Alabama, "I'm in a Hurry and Don't Know Why" / Coldplay, "Fix You"