Moving On....

In about 6 hours, I'm leaving the US to return to Uganda, and I can't really explain how I feel.

The best analogy I can come up with is that sort of queasy feeling you get when you know you're about to puke, and you're bracing for the onslaught. For me, there's a distinct emotional process that occurs when I'm going to barf...the shame, the logistics, the bad breath that lingers afterwards......all those scenarios run through my fevered brain.

Sometimes if I gulp in enough air, I can beat back the quease and the urge to upchuck passes, and then there are times when it can't be denied. But even though it's always an unpleasant experience, you're also guaranteed that once the last hurl is over, you usually feel a lot better.

Well, I've been feeling that way since I got to DC. I've described it to a few people as the feeling of boiling oil in the pit of my stomach. It's churning down there, and most of the time it absolutely kills my appetite and wakes me up at 2 AM, to lie there staring at the TV I left on to keep me company. But I also think the burning represents something more profound. I think it's the firewall between me and total emotional collapse.

Trust me, y'all, I could absolutely fall out on the floor kicking and screaming and wailing right now. I'm leaving America, DC, my home in Cairo....and the next time I visit Julie, it will be at Greenlawn Cemetery. This will be the first time in my blessed life of travel and a myriad adventures that I won't be able to pick up a phone and share something with Julie, to hear her hysterical howls as I describe the latest in the series of hilarious scrapes I always seem to get myself into. Julie has always been my best stand-up comedy audience.

Julie was always my best stand-up comedy audience. Writing that sentence really got the old burnin' belly churning. My stomach is knotted up like a fist, and not just because I just finished a two-piece from Popeye's. (Had to get one last blast of genetically, hormonally-enhanced yard bird before going back to Gulu to gnaw on emaciated war torn poultry.)

It's not that I'm scared to leave. After watching Julie take her last breath, I don't think I'll ever be afraid of anything again. Except maybe shoes from Payless. And it's not that I feel that I don't have lots of love and support here "at home" poised and waiting for me to settle my ass down somewhere. It's not even that I'm dreading the harsh conditions, the adjustments I'll have to make, the endless challenges that are the hallmarks of my daily life in Gulu.

I think my guts are burning because I can't pick up the phone and say goodbye to Julie. I can say a prayer, and I can write about what I'm feeling in this blog, but I can never, ever again tell her how much I love her. Loved her. How she was the wind beneath my wings. How much I'm aware that all these amazing experiences I get to have are because she loved me.

I guess I'm starting to feel like no matter how much I accomplish for the rest of my life, how much love and joy or career success or whether I finally do get around to adopting my baby and writing my book, Julie can't share it with me. I'm feeling incredibly guilty, because I feel like she made this GINORMOUS, unstinting, unqualified, whole-hearted, love-infused investment in making me the kind of woman who can get on a plane headed to live and work in Gulu, Uganda, and now that things may finally start to come together for me, when I'm emotionally and spiritually ready to create a balanced, nurturing, fruitful life for myself, Julie won't get to reap the dividends.

Maybe I'm feeling guilty because I can actually FEEL the possibilities of this next chapter of my life. Basically, I am invincible right about now. Professionally bullet-proof. Socially, I'm not going to test my luck by going on a blind date with an LRA rebel or anything, but I feel like anything I tackle, any goal I set for myself, I can achieve because there's nothing truly invaluable for me to lose anymore. In a lot of ways, it's a limitless, exciting feeling.

And yes, I know Julie WILL be with me, in so many ways. Except sitting next to me eating Popeye's, or trolling the sale racks at the mall, or clinking champagne glasses on a cruise ship, or standing up for me at my wedding, or holding my child.

I'm gonna greatly, devoutly enjoy doing all of those things. I AM gonna move on. It's just that sitting here at this table in front of this laptop, typing these words, I have no idea how. I can't begin to imagine what my life will be like tomorrow, or a week from now, a month from now, or a year from now, without Julie in it.

Now that I think about it, I guess there really IS one thing left that scares the hell out of me.