Stuck in the middle

I’m spending a lot of time on planes and at airports at the moment. I’ve never particularly enjoyed flying – not because it freaks me out or anything, more just that I hate being between places; I want to be somewhere, not en route. And I hate waiting. But in some ways I guess that being “in between” is kind of fitting at the moment. I was reading a friend of a friend’s blog, a girl my age who moved to Laos over a year ago for an AYAD fellowship. I’ve been reading the entries she wrote in the weeks before she left – I guess because that’s where I am at the moment - and in many ways they kind of mirror my feelings about my own imminent departure.

She described wanting to stay behind, of wanting to be overseas already, of feeling like she was slowly and inexorably leaving her old life without any control over the process. I’m beginning to feel a bit like this. I’m not sure what I’ll do in Melbourne; things are in flux at the moment, neither here nor there. I’m not desperately despairingly wishing I was still in my old relationship – mind you, there is the odd evening here and there when I do still – but I’m not "properly" single. I’m not working any more, but I have a job to go to in 6 weeks. I’m not living in my own place but I don’t really have space to call my own at my parents’. This is as literally and figuratively itinerant as I have ever been.

I was having one of my “terrified” moments last week – about this upcoming move, that is – and a woman I know was telling me what her psychologist had told her about new and scary situations. She said that this new situation is neutral; because it hasn’t arrived yet it has not had the chance to be detrimental or be beneficial, it is absolutely neutral. It seems pretty logical, doesn’t it? My protective mechanisms must be on overdrive because when I think about It in terms of the “everyday” things – where will I live? what will I eat? who will I talk to? what will I do in my spare time? – it does sometimes feel a bit catastrophic. I guess in my heart of hearts I know that I’ll be all right but wow, that panic spiral comes on quickly!

But panic aside, it boils down to this: now that I know that I have a new life to go to, I'm just impatient for it to start.