8.23.2006

5

What's a trip around the world without a good visa scare? Procrastinator that I am I left my visa application for Afghanistan just a little too long. Fortunately for me, when you call the Afghan Embassy in Canada, someone answers who can help you, within minutes. And so I was able to express my concern and they were very helpful. So my passport is once again in the air, on it's way back to me.

This past week has been obscured by a flurry of e-mails sorting out whom I will stay with in the places I will be traveling to in September. It's finally registering that I will see all of these people in just a short time. Now that I'm not fretting about my visa, I can focus on what's ahead.

I look at this trip as one of the first independent things I've done in my life. I don't really feel like I've been very stretched in terms of asserting my independence as an adult up to this point. Of course I'm "independent"-I have my own car, a real job and have had my own place to live and I have an education, etc. . .but during the last few years I feel like I've been lulled into a comfortable place, too comfortable, almost numbing. And so I look forward to taking this trip, having my consciousness roughed up a bit, being forced to stand on my own feet and being allowed into a different space from which I will have the privilege of looking back at my life here and imagining it in a different way.

5 days to go.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

how spooky, the comment interface let's you "choose an identity"... Anyways, I understand the feelings you describe. I'm in the same thing except that I feel less like I planned my next year in order to do this to myself. We shall see what direction I come out of it.
btw, I would comment under my Blogger username, but for some reason my password is too long for the box and it won't let me finish it...?!

Anonymous said...

forgot to say my name... hpf