Thursday, June 4, 2015

Over Jordan

I just plugged a 10-digit number into DHL's package-tracking service, and it informed me that my three cardboard boxes and one suitcase are scheduled to arrive in Washington, DC tomorrow, June 5th, 2015.

What will I be doing on June 5, while my clothes, books, and assorted Jordanian souvenirs simmer on my future front stoop?

Recovering, I expect, from an evening of on-campus festivities. Squeezing the things I wanted to bring to Greece and the things I forgot to ship home into one suitcase. Driving to Four Winters to cash in my full punch card for a regular-sized ice cream. Walking around King's Academy and looking out at the fields beyond the walls. Getting ready to say goodbye.

The last time you heard from me, the end was near, and now it's here. We've had our final faculty meeting, I've given back the key to my apartment, and I'm a few checked boxes away from officially signing out of King's Academy for good. Classes ended last week but they feel very far away. I saw students for the last time yesterday, at a really wonderful advisory group barbecue in Amman, and I guess it's just about time to accept their Facebook friend requests.

How does it feel?

The last few days have not been particularly reflective, or particularly celebratory or sad; plenty of logistics, a few heartfelt goodbyes, but no serious emotional turmoil or deep regret. I suppose I am ready for another adventure, like I was when I got on the plane in August 2013. Just today, feelings of anticipatory anxiety have started to bubble up, and I find myself calming them down by remembering that very few leaps into the unknown could rival the one I took two years ago, touching down in the desert to start my Real Life. I've already made that jump and lived to talk about it, so this one maybe won't feel quite so big.

I'm excited to be back in America. Will I annoy people by using Arabic phrases too much? Will I grow tired of the accessibility of creature comforts and the bafflingly consistent adherence to basic rules of driving? Will I miss my students? My friends?

So tonight there's a big goodbye, and tomorrow there's a slow burn to the end, and then I go to Greece and then I go home. Thursday, June 11; the following Monday I start summer work and then someday September will come and I'll start doing something else. It's going to be really, really different, but like I said before, I know how that feels already.

Too lazy for pictures from the last month right now. If you want to see them, just ask me the next time we see each other. I can take a train just about anywhere now, so I won't be far.

I think I'll probably regret the title of this post because it's a little sappy, but I've been thinking a lot about those apropos songs with "Jordan" in the title. I don't know if I'm going to get over Jordan, and I don't think I want to: I think I have learned things here that I won't even know I've learned until they tap me on the shoulder a few weeks months years down the road. I am very grateful to have been a part of this place, because I really believe in how important and special a school it is, and it feels like an honor to have helped push the seed of this place closer towards flourishing. Big changes ahead for King's, and for me as well, so I hope we stay in touch.

This may well be all for me and this blog. The best part of the internet is that these things don't go anywhere - maybe I'll take a look at my Xanga right now just for old time's sake. King's Academy, we came as strangers, we part as friends.

مع السلامة

No comments:

Post a Comment