all praise be to Allah

It's hot here. Well, hot for this normally wintery paradise. A friend tried to define the seasons here this way: (each is two months long) Unlocking, Spring, Summer, Autumn, Locking, Winter. Basically you can read that as winter, wet and muddy, cool but hopeful, cool and less hopeful, winter, winter. We get about six months of winter every year. You gotta love the snow to live here. But not now! It's been in the 80's every day, plenty of humidity, and people start to complain about the heat! I love it, great way to get ready for the real heat I am going to be getting plenty of right soon. Also, from my brother: "It was 120 here today, in case WNY is still a little behind the summer schedule we've got plenty of degrees to send your way." So, I mean, mid-80's is really quite a treat.

One week! One *$%^!{#ing week! Too much to get done, got to start prioritizing and getting whole lists done instead of just making progress.

And then just throw it all in a bag and run for the airport. Maybe run first, then drive to the airport.

bleah

I think that's how Charlie Brown used to say it. Closing up a life is never easy. Especially when dealing with all the accumulated stuff of a lifetime. Or a third of a lifetime.

"Hello, my name is Zac and I have lived one third of my expected life."

Today I am facing up to some realities, making some decisions. It reminds me of eating tô in Mali - doesn't taste good, don't want to do it, but need to have it done.

The bad days that I know are ahead have just become a reality, not some unknowable dark force causing dread in my heart. I know I will be as ready for them as I can be, just because I sit here in the cushiness and ease putting together what armor I have. I also know that at some point, or many points, it won't be enough. This world is too easy, too effortless to possibly prepare me for the demands of that world. Americans are weak because we don't know how hard the act of surviving can be.

Not a particularly uplifting post.

Jeez

So I fly to Philadelphia two weeks from today. I am so completely not ready it's comic (or comical?). I just survived a weekend / weeklong wedding of my best pal from childhood, and the emotional Niagara Falls of seeing some of my closest allies in living for the last time until who-knows-when. The good news is that it was a great, fantastic, and extremely successful whirlwind of parties, events, and goings on. More good, clean fun than anyone deserves to expect, and I am trying to be grateful for that.

Today I face the first day of my official "getting ready is the most important thing" phase, and haven't had a whole lot of success. But I made a list! And I am going to send some emails, look into ordering some things I will want / need, and start to dial it in. Also, got to speak to my brother - at war in Afganistan - through one of those miracles that the US Army provides: a telephone. Or maybe it's just the future that provides them. Anyway, if he can be sweating in the mountains of central Asia, I can get my lazy ass ready to fly out of this cushy life and into a new adventure.

I begin to feel my shell harden, my expectations darken a bit as I ready for the challenges ahead. I know they will jump out at me, and hopefully the first two hit me when I have some readiness. I also know that I will get tag teamed - probably sick and lonely and needing to accomplish something in a foreign language or who knows - and that will be a moment to look back on these good days as something more than dimming memories. Strength can be found in community, even 4222 miles away.

Life rips forward without pause

Cause that's what life does. So many things happen in a week in New York City. I won't rehash them for myself here, but I will say that it makes me realize how headlong rush this is going to become as I sit here in Buffalo and will wake suddenly in a hot place, remembering how I knew it was going to become a blur.

Discipline is going to be highly required to get it done, those things that I mean to complete, mean to finish for the part of me that recognizes I am not good at getting certain things done.

And what comes out in the wash is what I have to live with. Some homework assignments are coming due, no doubt about it. Can I find that need to complete them I once had?

On top of this, life is full of fun and I love it. I could easily ignore the burdens and survive. That is perhaps too much a part of the problem.