An increasingly global society.

I'm on the eve of leaving North Carolina for Scotland for the third time in ten months.  I think this will be easier than the departure after Christmas, but not as easy as the departure last August.  I'm feeling the same feelings of fear and loss at the prospect of parting from people and places that are familiar to me.  It may be Christmas before I see my family again.  It may be longer.  I am probably never going to see my tired, feeble, stone-deaf, 14-year-old dog again.  And there's another source of poignancy: I said that after this visit, I wasn't going to set foot in North Carolina again until Amendment One is repealed; and while I still mean it, that doesn't mean I'm not going to miss the place.

But at the same time, I've got a real sense of purpose attached to this journey.  I'm ready to start analyzing data and writing this thesis.  I'm ready to start seeing some places in Scotland I haven't seen yet.  And there are people over there who are just as dear to me as some of my friends here, and I want to see them again.

For another thing, I know I'm not alone.  Many of my friends here in the US are beginning to scatter to the four winds.  One is moving to Los Angeles next month, another is moving to Korea later this year, and another may be moving to Georgia (the former Soviet republic, not the state two doors down from NC) in August.  It should maybe be a sad thing that we're all moving so far apart, but I'm actually happy about it.  In the increasingly global society in which we live, distance is but a number in many ways.  And I'd like to think that my move to a foreign country has maybe inspired all these subsequent moves a bit.  Is that vain?

I can't wait to see what state the kitchen is in when I get back to my flat on Friday.  Ugh.

Cheers, y'all.