lovely limbo

I love being away from home. Getting out of the city, state, country - wherever - I think travel is wonderful.

A persistent challenge that comes with travel is finding what to do with the days just before leaving a place. I feel like I'm already in that realm of uncertainty. I've worked my last shifts at the coffee shop, i find out from my two top pick medical schools in the next few weeks, I leave for the west coast March 10th and then I'm hoping to leave for India March 17th.

I get back from India the last week of May (insh'allah) and depending on where I go to school I could have as little as two weeks to pack up my things, find a new place and move to my new home for next 4/5 years.

It sounds like a lot, but today, it's more like a lot of nothing.

The last time I went to South America, I fell in with a group of lovely canadiennes. They spent a good deal of time planning their last day together: which markets to visit, where to dance, which coffee/pancakes to savor. If I remember correctly, that last day ended up being a lot of fun, but little of what we did was originally on the list.

Which, of course, is the way it usually goes. One of the most popular interview questions for medical school is "where do you see yourself in 10 years?" While I understand you could probably gauge for narcissism (chief resident with the best handicap on the course) or careful goal setting, it doesn't seem like all that important of a probe to me.

I don't think it's right to chalk up my feelings about my present uncertainties to anxiety, and it's not necessarily as though I'm wrapped up in my expectations - this situation keeps me from having any expectations at all.

That's the present challenge. Keep the future in the future.