nerves

Woke up before dawn today with my mind whirring with thought after thought. This is what emotional strain and coffee does to me. I finally got up around 6:30 and my parents house is so quiet I can hear the tick-tick of the clock.

I am trying to keep track of all the little things we have to do before we leave next weekend. Banking, money transfers, goodbyes, birthday gifts, and most importantly, spending time with people. Strangely thought, I don't feel stressed, which is a huge blessing. For the most part I am just enjoying each day.

Martin and I were also very blessed this week to get together with the most wonderful family. They are an Ethiopian couple that we got to know through Martin's work, and their five children. When the evening ended, they gathered together and prayed for us and shared their hearts with us, and it was the most incredible experience. I could not stop the tears from pouring as they were so vulnerable with us. It was hard in a way as well, because Martin and I have yearned for relationships with people in Calgary, where we can be ourselves and share our hearts, and here these amazing people were doing just that. I have never felt such a spiritual connection, and it both lifted our hearts and broke us, because it was encouraging and heart-rending.

The weekend coming holds many goodbyes for us, and I hope I can make it through without completely breaking down! I am looking forward to my birthday party and several farewell parties, and they should be mostly fun, with a little sad. At least that's what I am counting on.

got a haircut, but no job

It's past midnight on Wednesday and I am enjoying one of the (luxuries?) of an unemployed person -- staying up late doing random activities like laundry and watching the absolute stupidity that is the TV show CSI: Miami. I mean, do people really make a living from writing this kind of stuff for TV? I could have a real career ahead of me if I wanted to pander to undereducated simpletons. Anyways, makes me laugh because whenever it comes up that Martin and I don't have television, people regularly ask, "how do you live?!" And that kills me because somehow watching cheap, gossipy, hole-in-the-head TV has somehow come to be classified as "living." I am entirely grateful for the pop culture I haven't subjected myself to by watching the boob tube.

Okay, but enough of the rant. This is my first week officially unemployed, and I am quite happy. We have finally! moved out of our apartment after a very long and tiresome move. I decided I really don't like moving. It's not fun at all. We gave away what seemed like a ton of stuff and we still have a ton left over. We sell our car this week and then that's the last of the major stuff to rid ourselves of.

I am still living in this surreal time-suspended state. It doesn't feel like I am moving away in less than three weeks. I am neither fully excited, sad, or frightened. I am somewhere in between, and I am happy that I can live in the moment and just enjoy each day as it goes. I hate to see the sad look on my mom's face if things come up like deciding who is going to drive us to the airport. She is absolutely heroic in holding back the tears. It's going to rip up my insides to say goodbye, and I can feel that clench in my gut when I think about leaving, but I just want to be happy about the time we have together.

I have had a growing respect for so many people that I have loved and respected all along, but as I go through these emotions and experiences, I admire them all the more. Hyonjoo, Jihae, Drew, Martin -- people that made these huge decisions and faced the unknown and said these difficult goodbyes many times and still will themselves to do it once more. To face a culture"alone", I absolutely respect that. I don't think I could do it.

This weekend we are heading to Waterton with my parents, and we're going horseback riding and other excellent activities which I am excited about. And my birthday is coming up soon so I think there is going to be a steady stream of partying going on in the next while. Yay! The fun part of goodbyes comes first.

sojourner

Someone recently suggested to me that I blog about the fallout of the decisions that Martin and I are currently making -- or is God making them? -- to move to Sweden. I felt a twinge of shame, knowing that I am the laziest blogger out there and my adoring masses have been dying for even the teeniest update from me. (I hope my sarcasm translated.) Martin put it well when he asked me, "Danielle, what is a blog for?" I responded with one of my infamous dirty looks. (At least, I have discovered that they are quite infamous, my dirty looks.)

At any rate, I was challenged to once again take up the keyboard, amidst the organized chaos that is our lives. I feel like every part of my life is in transit. Our apartment is mostly bare with stacks of boxes, and it seems like most days we are packing or sorting or organizing. I only have seven working days left, and have "passed off" most of my projects -- setting my babies free to be pillaged and dessicated by someone else.

I am hopeful, eager, and scared. My deep-down fear is the thing that I can only imagine and have yet to experience -- leaving my familiar and sinking into a life where I have no background, no language, no experience, no capabilities. I have only an inkling of understanding of what Martin went through when he moved here and wasn't able to find the grocery store. I only hope that I will be able to handle this great challenge with the grace and patience that Martin did here in Canada. Soon my understanding of his experience will be quite complete, which I do look forward to. That mutual understanding is something I want out of this experience, that we can know and read each other on a level deeper than before.

Starting a "new" life -- I haven't done this before. Just 100 lbs of luggage each, and that's what we start with. We are indebted to Martin's family -- finding and giving us furniture, working on our little house preparing for our arrival, and doing a million other things. I spend a lot of time imagining our house and trying to picture what we can do in it -- colors to paint, that sort of thing. I get an inordinate amount of gratification from decorating and painting.

I will be try to be more diligent in blogging about this new journey. We leave Calgary on July 19, just eight days after my 26th birthday. I start school on Sept. 19, and that promises to be a whole other adventure.

To Sweden, then.

energy

I am inspired this morning for some unknown reason; I woke before the sun had risen and tossed restlessly until getting up. There is energy in my body and my brain is speeding ahead of everything else. I find myself in this state often these days, like my adrenaline is running and I need to find an outlet for it. Today I am casting a glance around our living room thinking about what I can organize or accomplish this morning. It's a beautiful morning, the sun is already blazing and it's the Easter long weekend. The skyscrapers downtown are glowing  brightly as they do in the sunrise, and I have already seen one of those irritating yuppy joggers flash by. 

Not sure what my racing thoughts are pushing me to do today: organizing something isn't that exciting. I have the urge to work. Not paper-pusher work I normally do, but to break a sweat and accomplish something tangible. (Is this a product of doing a job where so much is intangible? Probably. Humans like to see the results of accomplishment: a ploughed field, a garden growing, a painting painted. I would love to get outside this morning, begin preparing the flower beds for spring, get my hands dirty. It's a wonderful thought to dwell on that soon we will have a place of our own to work and affect with our style and creativity. I love working outside, even mowing the lawn. I have missed that since our landlord decided he didn't want to pay us properly to take care of the building, and we've become complete urbanites while our apartment building has fallen into shambles. Garbage is strewn about, snow isn't shoveled, the yard in disrepair. It's a shame, but a ray of hope for us is the knowledge that soon we won't have to tolerate it!

Guess I should get off my duffer and do something instead of write about it. 

blugger

Desperation is no good. All things wither and fade, or something along those lines. Trying to keep hold of my Mexico tan reminds of how futile it is to hold onto beauty or young age. Normally I don't care too much about skin and creams and such, but I have been slathering on the lotion several times a day in desperate attempt to keep my whole body from peeling off like the Eustace dragon skin in Voyage of the Dawn Treader. And desperation is really quite useless. I feel very lizard-esque.

Seems like I am in a really good spot mentally lately, as if my vacation did wonders. Who knows? All I know is I am coping better with "life". You know -- work hassles, silly people, stress, boredom -- the little stuff isn't getting to me so much. I hardly think about work (or it's drama) once I am hope, I feel cheerier and I have been finding the inspiration to write. I feel as though my creativity is returning, and that's a lovely feeling.

And maybe because we have some secret plans brewing (those who know the secret plans know they are not really secret but just not "public"). They get me nervous and freaked out and energized. They are still just "plans". But suddenly, voila! you have more than a plan.

Now I am just getting plain silly. Anyways... I am trying to occupy myself more. Books, a writing class at the University of Calgary, trying to find a Swedish class that would teach pre-school Swedish to adults. (Not having much luck there -- I have increasing respect for all of the amazing people I know who've learned to speak English.)

PS. As promised, some of my photos of humpback whales in Banderas Bay.