5.1.12

Within two weeks I will be on a plane headed to Vientiane, Laos. It will be my first time visiting an Asian country and my twenty fifth time changing location within the past seven years.

For your amusement and because I want to see it mapped out myself, I have provided below a list of all these locations:

(Starting June of 2007)
1) 3 months - Provo, UT - Missionary Training Center (MTC)
2) 1.5 months - Alejandro Korn, Argentina
3) 4.5 months - Nueve de Abril, Argentina
4) 3 months - San Clemente, Argentina
5) 3 months - Berisso, Argentina
6) 3 months - Spegazzini, Argentina
7) 3 months - La Cumbre, Argentina
8) 3 months - Alejandro Korn, Argentina
9) 3 months - San Jose, Argentina
10) 2 months - Home (Valencia, CA)
11) 8 months - La Riviera, Provo, UT
12) 4 months - Foreign Language Housing, Provo, UT
(in this time period is included a two-week trip to Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, and France)
13) 8 months - The Branbury, Provo, UT
14) 2 months - Debre Zeit, Ethiopia
15) 2 months - London, England
(includes visits to Scotland and England's Lake District)
16) 8 months - La Riviera, Provo, UT
17) 1 month - Home
18) 3 months - Kampala, Uganda
19) 4 months - Carriage Cove, Provo, UT
20) 1 month - Home
21) 3 months - Kampala, Uganda
(this includes visits to northern parts of Uganda such as Gulu and Luweero)
22) 4 months - The Crestwood, Provo, UT
23) 4 months - DeVere Court, Provo, UT
24) 4 months - Home
(this includes my recent trips to Chicago and Urbana, IL and to Washington, DC)
25) 3 months - Vientiane, Laos (pending)

For you nerds (which excludes myself, of course), that's an average of about three and a half months in any one location. I have moved around a lot.

As I look at this list, I am suddenly so very tired. My ambitions seem to melt away and I am left with a feeling of lonely shyness. I suddenly do not want to get on that plane to Vientiane, I am afraid of it in a strangely contradicting way - I feel that I want to belong somewhere, but I simultaneously fear what it takes to really belong anywhere. I doubt my ability to belong. Perhaps that can be one of the curses of loneliness: wanting companionship and yet fearing the intimacy it takes to produce it.

My mind, however, has slowly adapted to this pinball lifestyle. Without even having to consciously decide on it, I find myself storing future events in a secret mental location of "inconceivable's" and "not-actually-happening's." Thus, it is often not until I have to adapt to a new place that I actually realize that I'm there. I'm not sure whether or not to thank my mind for providing this service.

I think this causes me to look at friendships in a strange way, and that scares me too. As I set deeper and deeper expectations and ideals for friendship, I find it easier to justify emotional distance.

I think about you, about if I could be a good friend to you. Based on my track record, I don't know that I could offer you much (you see? justifying emotional distance...). Maybe some of it has to do with love, with what I define as love, with what I'm comfortable admitting to as love.

Perhaps that is something we all struggle with: honestly admitting to love, especially the non-romantic kind. I think one of the reasons I struggle is because I fear the permanence and commitment of belonging, and I fear what my love would influence me to do, and in so doing, what you would think of me. I think a lot about what you might think about me. Mostly I pale at the potential risks.

And I love you.