Send-offs and Farewells

Up until a few months ago, the island of Malta and I were completely unaware of each other in this mutual bliss that was far more commonplace before the age of the internet. But now, me and Malta have a mutual friend in Raquel, who today departed for a 13 month dual master's program. Yesterday, I spent the day in DC enjoying lunch with an eclectic group of individuals that only Raquel has a knack for gathering, then driving through and around the city as she made some last minute preparations.

Before I left for DC, when Michael and I were talking about the financial and logistical implications of traveling through the mid-Atlantic states, Michael said to me, "Whoa. You won't see Raquel for a whole year." I laughed. I met Raquel when I was 14 and she has since been among my dearest friends. But within the last twelve years of our friendship, we've spanned up to twelve timezones and, between the two of us, relocated across state lines seven times. We've only lived in the same town for about two and a half of those twelve years. So when he said, "Whoa. You won't see Raquel for a whole year," I laughed. "I've done it before, " I responded.

I have, since returning to the United States, felt more of the bitter part of the bittersweet truth that the more you see the world, the more isolated you become. I have great friends everywhere--except wherever I currently find myself. It's the trick to being the new guy, the sojourner, the foreigner. I have been wondering, these last 26 months, if it's really worth it, if the intensity of new experiences is a fair trade off for the comfort of long-term intimacy.

But yesterday, as I followed left-right-stay-in-this-lane-go-around-the-square driving directions between stories about such-and-such-in-recent-days and the-waiter-at-the-restaurant and down-that-street-is-where-I-used-to-live, I felt more that sweet part of the bittersweet that means that it is possible to maintain that long-term intimacy across state lines and timezones and oceans and continents. I want to believe it's not only possible but feasible. And in Raquel, it's easy for me to believe that it is.

So me and Malta are becoming pleasantly acquainted, now seated together as part of that eclectic group of individuals only Raquel has a knack for gathering.

Vocations

Vocations, apparently, are not just jobs, trades, or careers. They're something akin to callings, occupational raison d'etres. Yesterday, my mom told me about a nurse practitioner friend who passes out at the sight of blood. "It just isn't her vocation," my mom explained.

I joked with my mother earlier this week that I could have been a surgeon. This, of course, isn't true for two significant reasons, (1) I hate biology and (2) I hate school. So surgery--and medicine overall--"just isn't my vocation." And if not that, then what?

Americans, you know, like to get to know people by asking them, "What do you do?" Other cultures start with questions like, "Where are you from?" or "Where do you live?" or "Tell me about your family" But Americans like to ask about vocation. Because being a CPA or a JD or a Historian or a Math Teacher matter, not only because of the prestige it may or may not carry, but because we believe it's a key to understanding a person's sense of self.

But like my mom's nurse practitioner friend, I wonder how many of us find our vocations. And how many, like those several hundred thousand people on hold every week filing their first unemployment claim, don't.