Pause for the cause

Okay, first of all, I just finally had a chance to sit down and catch up reading all of my friends' blogs, and damn, am I behind...

Most importantly - my good friend Lorna is hosting a very cool and very important Charity Auction to benefit two of her good friends who've been stricken with cancer. Go. Visit. Bid. Bonus points if you bid on item #13. But bid on other things, too. And if you're a spinner, or are thinking of becoming a spinner, or know a spinner, or just love the myth of Arachnae, bid on the Alpaca roving. For the love of all things woolen, bid on the alpaca.

Things around here, you can imagine, have been pretty busy. In between the packing and the myriad good-bye get togethers and the chopping all my hair off (it's short) and the ohmygodI'mleaving freakouts (those have mostly been unwitnessed, and if pressed, I'll deny them), I have managed to get some fiberwork done. I crocheted my mother a shawl for her birthday and actually finished it in time! Huzza! I also finished the first of my dad's socks. Have I offloaded the pictures from my camera yet? Of course not. But, soon.

This week has been a blur of seeing people and doing things and saying way too many goodbyes. I mean...oy. When I get the chance (and can shut the voices in my head up long enough) to sit back and actually think about this next step, I'm really excited about it. Considerably. I think this is going to be a good step. I think the training at my new program is going to be far superior to what I could've gotten if I'd matched closer to home. I think I'm going to love the area and the culture and my job and my new life. I think this is going to be very different and infinitely better than my last and most unfortunate situation. I think, in short, that this is going to be very positive. The world is my oyster. It's been such a difficult two years...I've been in utter limbo, and the mere idea of just having my feet firmly on the ground again is exhilarating. I'm going back to the profession I love, I'm going to have purpose and direction again. And patients. I love having patients. That's the part of the job that rocks. I'm going to learn a lot. I'm going to have new, interesting people around me and get to find out about a lot of different aspects of my newly chosen specialty. I'm going to find whole new things to be interested in, professionally and personally. This is going to be a really good time.

But I'm very sorry that it has to come at the cost of what stability I have been able to garner, and of the people who have either always been or who have recently become so incredibly important to me. That's the theme I keep falling back on this week. I love these people. This, my family, genetic or practical - that's where it's always been for me. I hate that my milieu has to change, that the dynamic is going to shift. Not that it wouldn't even if I stayed in Chicago - the 80 hour work week has a nasty habit of cutting into your social life. But there's absolutely no chance I can meet for dinner. No coercing me into going out for coffee, no raucous yarn field trips. Not with this family, not without much planning. Does this mean I'll drift off and lose them? No, of course not. We're in the most connected age in history. It doesn't mean losing anyone, necessarily, it just means that the relationships will evolve and modify. Does moving mean that I'll be all alone and have no one to meet for dinner, coffee, or yarn? Of course it doesn't mean that, either. There will be new people in my life, none of whom will replace the old, all of whom will merely expand my life. And to toss in an obscure quote from one of my favorite TV shows, "you've got to live wide" (bonus points to anyone who can name the show. Or who is still reading these ramblings). But it all means change, which carries with it its own intrinsic sort of loss.

But then again, change is the most constant thing in the universe, isn't it?