Good Friends

With my brother and his wife, Angi, my oldest friend

My entire life I've been blessed to have great friends. I'm in touch with friends from every stage and phase of life. My oldest friend I've known since the fourth grade and she is now married to my brother and the mother of a niece and nephew (never could have predicted that one!). I am in contact with friends from elementary school, middle and high school, and from my college years. I have friends from my years in the Army and all the various units I was assigned to, and friends from when I lived in Boise, ID. And of course the host of fantastic friends I've made over these past 16 years I've been living in Colorado.

Elaine, Nancy, me & Katie

There is no true way to appreciate how overwhelmingly supportive my friends have been over these past six months. They watched me map a new, and completely unpredictable, path in life, and at a breakneck speed. When an email reply included, "mind if I catch my breath on that one?," I always reply with, "but of course." 

I know how many intellectual and emotional somersaults I've been doing, and therefore I can appreciate the mental gymnastics that I am forcing others to move through. And yet, I want to thank them.....for hosting Zorig and I for a meal, for listening to me tell the (incredible) love story yet one more time, for texting me in the hours and days after his departure to make sure I was okay. 

With Julie

Yes, I am blessed with damn good friends. 

Which brings me to the reality that I will be moving far away from all of them. Though both a curse and a joy, we will thankfully have technology that allows us to stay in touch. From email (yes, those of us over 35 still use this form of communication fairly regularly) to Facebook to Skype or Facetime. 

With Carl & George, whom I served with in Army NG

But I will miss my wine dates with Elaine, my hikes and trail running with Julia, my talks and 90210 dates with Katherine, my close-the-door-let-me-fill-you-in-moments with Anita, honoring truths with Avery, bonding over 80s movies and music with Katie, dancing to 90s hits with Jen, and ALL the talks over wine or coffee or food with each and every one of the lovely individuals in my life.

In 122 days I depart for a new place, a new home. I will make new friends, MORE friends. I'm already expanding my Facebook circle with Mongolian friends both here in the US (a kind and helpful Mongolian woman living in Denver that is helping me ship my stuff AND offering some very good advice) and in Mongolia (Z's friends and family members). While I don't yet know many of them, they are overwhelmingly kind with messages like:

• We are waiting for you. Welcome to Mongolia!
• Congratulations on your engagement. I am excited to see you soon.
• I wish all the best for you and your family.

With Mallory.

And they comment kindly on all of Zorig and I's photos. I can't ,of course, yet read most of them.....but Z is kind enough to translate and fill me in. They are accepting and inviting, wishing the two of us the best in our love and future life together.  I'm anxious to meet each and every one of them in person come summertime. As I gain the Mongolian language, then my circle of friends will expand. 

Additionally, I will make friends at the school where I'll be working as a school librarian, the American School of Ulaanbaatar. It will be good for me to have an English-speaking circle of friends and acquaintances. I've also joined up with Internations.org, an online community where expats can connect and share information. Not to mention the numerous Facebook group pages that exist for expats in any given country. 

There is a quote that goes something like this: "Friends are the family we choose." I couldn't agree more and I thank each and every friend in my life. Friends from my past who were there for me, present friends who support me in the now, and the future friends I don't yet know.

82 Hours

Journaling in the Bayangobi, July 2014

If you've never encountered Susan Cain's book Quiet, or at least heard her TED Talk about "The Power of Introverts," then I highly recommend you do one or the other immediately. Two years ago Quiet was our faculty's summer read here at Fountain Valley School of Colorado. I'd always identified myself as an extrovert and think most people that know me would do the same. However, upon taking the brief quiz at the start of the book I discovered that I'm what has been coined an ambivert. The dictionary gives it a very basic definition which lacks the real unique qualities in this personality identifier. 

You see, I crave social interaction just as much as I need quiet, alone time. I spend my days and weeks toggling between the two sides of this swinging pendulum. After a couple of nights with social engagements or commitments, then I need a night off where I can be alone with my thoughts. 

This past weekend we had a snowstorm blow through Colorado. On Friday night I attended our school musical (The Man of La Mancha) to see the great work of two of my advisees, and then promptly drove home and parked my car which wouldn't move for 82 hours. While my weekend had originally been slated to include coffee with a girlfriend, a gathering of prior work colleagues for a potluck party, and then a Sunday brunch with another dear friend, one by one each event was canceled because of weather. And so I spent 82 hours alone in my apartment. An apartment that until three weeks ago had a nine pound cat prowling around, and until two weeks ago had a man that slept late, ate oranges in the wee hours of the night, and watched movies in Russian. I confess to missing them both very much. 

But with Mona adapting to her new family and Zorig back home in UB, it was just me rattling around the rooms of my nearly 1K square foot apartment. At first I was thrilled to consider that I could sleep until I wanted to get up, drink an entire pot of coffee while I journaled and listened to Bon Iver on repeat, and then read or watch movies or clean and sort. Or whatever my little heart desired. And Saturday was blissful....watching the snow fall and being warm and cozy inside. I began the hard work of sorting the stuff of my life and wrote not one, but two blog posts. I felt inspired and motivated. There was stuff to throw out, stuff to pass on to family or friends, stuff to sell (I even created a "I'm Moving to Mongolia" Sales Catalog!), stuff to take to Goodwill, and then the stuff to carefully pack for shipment to my next home. 

On Sunday, I trekked outside to take a couple of boxes to the dumpster. It was cold and not at all conducive to a walk which surely would have helped me avoid feelings that began to quietly descend as a strange and shifting fog. I watched some of the Oscars while I continued to sort through old letters and mementos. While I've never been a pack rat, I was surprised at how much random stuff I've kept over the years.  From concert ticket stubs (Chris Ledoux, Juice Newton, Chicago) to military challenge coins to old journals. From elementary school writings (about unicorns and wizards, of course!) to middle school awards (America & Me Essay contest--Second Place) to a marathon finisher medal. And then the stacks and piles of cards, and letters, and even notes that had been passed in the halls of Gaylord Middle School. 

For the most part, I chose to enjoy the memory and opted to then discard the said item. Because really, what's the point? While I can appreciate a trip down memory lane, I'm also conscious of the fact that if I am lost in memories, then I am not fully living in the current moment. And if we are not present in the NOW, then we are missing out on something or someone, aren't we? We've heard a lot in recent years about mindfulness. Until recently, I confess to seeing it as a bunch of new-age hogwash. But as someone who has completely revised her life over the past six months, I have a new appreciation for mindfulness and being completely in the NOW. 

If I hadn't embraced the NOW of my father and I's epic trip to Mongolia, then my life would not be what it has become (And I am happier than perhaps I have EVER been, and I am experiencing a second round of that feeling we had--just as we finished high school or college--when the sheer number of roads ahead of us was intoxicating and made our hearts race with joy and excitement). 

But as my Sunday stretched into Monday, a day which I self-declared a snow day because the roads were so dreadful, I began to suffer from a strange feeling of isolation and loneliness. Oh, I was still happy to sleep late, eat whenever, and drink loads of coffee, but something else began to take hold of me. By not interacting with people for so long, I began to suffer melancholy. This is not a real sadness or depression, but rather a feeling of unease and uncertainty. I'd had far too much time walking the halls of my own mind. And sorting my life had brought up a not too distant feeling of fear. I don't know why I thought that I was done being scared about the upcoming changes to my life. What a silly assumption. I see now that the coming weeks and months will continue to throw fears at me (can I really do this? how hard is it REALLY going to be? have I bit off more than a person can reasonably chew? How much change is too much? Is there a thing as too much?). 

When I came to work on Tuesday there was an incredible feeling of relief to once again be amongst people. To hear the sound of my voice outside my head and in my ears. To think about other people, events, and things. While I think one or two days of utter solitude can do my soul some good, I know that 82 hours is more than I require. Next time, I'm walking to King Soopers to buy something from the deli, if for no other reason than to hear the sound of others voices. 

The Stuff of Life

In 2005 I read A Whole New Mind by Daniel H. Pink just before he came to Colorado for a speaking engagement in our school district. While I like the book for many reasons, the fact contained in this quote box has never left my mind. My mother has always stored stuff in self storage. Sometimes renting multiple units. In fact, she and my sister Robin are currently in the process of condensing a couple of units. In looking at the footnote that this quote connects to, I visited www.selfstorage.org to look at current statistics. In 2013, the self storage industry generated more than $24 Billion in U.S. revenue. To provide something a little more visual, consider this (from the Fact Sheet on selfstorage.org): 

"Total self storage rentable space in the US is now 2.3 billion square feet (as of Q4-2013) [approximately 210 million square meters].  That figure represents more than 78 square miles of rentable self storage space, under roof – or an area well more than 3 times the size of Manhattan Island (NY)"

It's because of numbers like this that I am vehemently opposed to personally choosing to store my own belongings. Don't get me wrong, there is a time and place to do so. For example, a soldier being deployed can rent a storage space cheaper than maintaining an apartment he/she won't be inhabiting. But to own or rent a residence AND have additional storage seems wasteful to me. Either the stuff matters in your life, can be useful, or it doesn't. Until now, I've always packed up my belongings and moved them into the next home or apartment. I've always had the necessary space. 

Stuff being sorted and packed today.

But moving over the Pacific to another continent is not the same thing as packing a Uhaul and driving from PA to ID, or from the house on Prado Drive to the apartment at the Knolls. When you are looking at paying $50 per box or rubbermaid crate to travel 45-60 days by ocean freighter, then you have to be critically selective. 

It is, of course, important to have family mementos and those things that remind you of your childhood and youth. It's important to have things that will make you feel at home.....in a new, and at least initially foreign, home. Right? But I also can't take it all. Some books I loved, but will I really read them again? (Yes for Jane Eyre....she absolutely makes the cut!) I don't need 8 copies of that publication I made while deployed in 1998-99; two will do. And all those notes passed from friends while in middle and high school? Well, I am enjoying the memories now, with a glass of wine, but then they go in the trash (perhaps after taking a picture with my phone and sending it via fb messenger to said old friend). And pictures? Well, I don't have the time nor the patience to scan them all....so they make the cut and will ride the Pacific waves to be delivered to my new home in Ulaanbaatar.

So on this snowy, wintry February weekend in Colorado, I chip away at the Stuff of My Life (to date). What matters? What doesn't? Is reliving the memory contained in that old letter today, enough? And when I'm dead and gone will any of this stuff have meaning to anyone? Or is its sole purpose to simply bring joy and comfort to the life I am walking and breathing in this time? 

I don't know the answers. And my answers could be different than yours. I'm figuring this out as I go, as I navigate this previously uncharted course. But one thing I've discovered for sure--packing up one's life is not a speedy or simple process. It takes time and energy. And music. And wine. I miss My Love very much (oh so very much!), but this Time is needed so that I may reflect and remember. Time to process and prepare. 

My good friend, Julia, recently shared the following with me:

"...winter is the perfect time to go deep and internal, to go underground before reemerging in the spring. This is your winter. I can only imagine how much you miss him already, but you will be on overload once summer hits. Reflect. Refuel. Prepare."

She is right. 

So I shall pour myself some Malbec and sort that next pile. 

All the while imagining what it will be like to unpack it in my next home. I always liked the putting away of things in a new space. That's the best part!