Africa Can Bite Me!

I have very few things in my life planned. Not that I don’t want things planned out, its just that actually sitting down and thinking about my life on a grand scale is too daunting a task. Rather, I like to take things a step at a time. One class, one semester, one year at a time. Since graduating in June I’ve faced the looming unplannedness of a future devoid of classes and therefore class structure, a structure I have built around myself like a blanket. To simply shrug it off is far too hard for me, so I delt with it as I always have, one baby step at a time, trying not to look at the next step too hard, but having the next step in mind.

For me step 1 out of college was: Get A Job. I know, I know, I’m a rebel. Who on earth thinks of employment after school? But hey, what can I say, I’m a free spirit. Step 1 has been accomplished and so Step 2 was fast approaching. My foot hadn’t landed, but it was waving in the air. Step 2 was: Find A Roommate which would lead directly into Step 3: Move Out. (yes there was a 2a, Find Apartment). Step 2 has been crushed. Step 2 is now a fantasy. The foot that was out waving over Step 2 has been pushed back and my footing is a bit unstable.

My idea for Step 2 was to move in with a friend of mine that I will give the alias “Julie”. Julie lived with me in the past in school, we get along well, have deep intellectual conversations (really, I’m not being facetious). Julie, however, had a dream. Her dream was to go to Africa with the Peace Corps and help AIDS babies. Not a dream to be sneezed at. But her Dream was interfering with Step 2. I wont deny that I wanted her to be rejected by the Peace Corps so that my Step 2 would work. After months of delaying their response, and keeping both our hopes up for opposite results, today the Peace Corps delivered.

Julie will be going to Namibia only a short time after our mutual friend’s wedding. She will be gone for 2 years. There was a lurch in my stomach when I heard that. And I think that the lurch was more to do with the loss of a next Step, rather than the loss of my friend. Does that make me a bad person? Probably.

I will miss my friend though. I miss her already and we’ve only been separated for the duration of the summer thus far. She makes me laugh and makes me think and now she is going to make the world a slightly better place than when she found it. I am immensely proud to know her and of her.

Still, Africa can BITE ME!