The last day

It is my last day in America. Sarah and I have spent the day together, sorting through stuff, packing up stuff, throwing out stuff. We have been kind and considerate and working together as we should always have worked together. It's a strange day. Funny with crying.

I woke up unable to process the idea that I am leaving tomorrow. Just like the first moments of this crash, I concentrated on what needed to be done and couldn't bring myself to think about what might have been. I set about this blog with the intention of documenting a period in my life which I was treating like an adventure with a finite goal -- to live in Slovenia and learn to paraglide. That goal, while somewhat obscure, helps me to compartmentalize this trip. I can't see it as losing Sarah, I have to see it as fulfilling a lifelong ambition to master a skill.

Now that I'm on the verge of leaving I've ramped that up and gone even further into an imaginary world of self-protection. I decided, some five minutes after opening my eyes, that I would try skiing. One can tell that the brain is trying to protect itself when learning to ski at the age of 54 seems like a good idea. I'm sure a therapist would underline the word 'skiing' as soon as I mentioned it, and would know what it represents. I am shrinking away from harm into the snowy bosom of a winter wonderland, clutching at anything that makes tomorrow's event an adventure rather than the futile sadness that reality presents. After tomorrow I won't see Sarah again, and I want to. I love her. We watch tv together and laugh at things.

We argue too. Lets not forget that. We are at odds much of the time. I don't fit into the world that works for her, and I complained endlessly, wanted to change everything, had unrealistic expectations. Instead of changing the way things were, I simply complained, and finally she needed something else. I needed something else. This is the something else. I hope that in a year we will be happier people and maybe wiser too. I hope those two people meet up in a year's time and think about staying together in the happy winter wonderland, where 54 year old men take up skiing and fly through the mountains as if that were a normal thing to do. I hope she comes to see a man she'd like to be with.

But today has been all about packing things into boxes to ship, or bags to carry. We have laughed, we went out to eat, we spent the day together and when we stopped laughing, one of us would cry, silently, then move on.

We are now going to watch some TV for the last time. We like My Name is Earl. It's about a man who changes his ways, and the world becomes a better place.