It's All Coming Back to Me Now

I don't miss Massachusetts, in spite of the fact that I lived here for 8 years. I don't miss Pennsylvania at all (six years). In fact, I don't miss my house/home though we've been away for over 2 weeks.

And... I don't miss Brazil either, though I lived 24 years of my life there.

I just don't get attached to places, I guess. Living somewhere is not a big deal... human beings are extremely adaptable. I lived for 27 days in Europe with 4 changes of clothes, a tent & thin air pads. And I didn't miss anything that fills my house to the brim.

Sometimes I think that we should live as simply as possible all the time...

But... that's not supposed to be the topic of this post!!

I just wanted to come here and register how interesting (and so devoid of any feelings -- OK, nearly devoid, not 100% so) it felt to be driving around the place where we lived for 7 years.

Slowly, it all started coming back to me: the shortcuts from the university to the road that used to lead home, the shortcut to come to our friends' house where we're staying...

I do feel tiny slivers of regret because I didn't enjoy this location to the fullest, but then I didn't know better and also couldn't afford it (things like wonderful organic CSA & delicious local restaurants).

I was saying to my sons that I didn't do so much, that I was a different person then and my oldest replied, "Yes, of course, you were so much younger!" Very true.

Oh, I also found out about the demise of the student "church" group we started on campus which lasted for solid 10 years (we led it for 3). I was so mad, but this subject has nothing to do with the blog. Sigh...

Yeah... mostly I feel nothing. I'm glad I had the opportunity to study here and get my PhD, I think I did the most of my time at the university. I managed to make good friends (I visited two of them last Sunday!) and we had a tough time with church until we started our own group on campus.

It was wonderful to talk to our graduate student colleague (and church fellow) from Jamaica who was offered a tenure-track position even before completing his degree (back in 2003!), now tenured and showing me his wonderful new office in lab in a state-of-the-art facility.

I just wish K was here so we could see all this together. I guess we'll have to come back here together.

and now... on to bed!

P.S. I won't dedicate a post to this, only a footnote. Last night/this morning were a NIGHTMARE because I discovered that I had assumed that the new hire would order textbooks for my class (technically I know that s/he is/was supposed to! but I'm not going to confront hir, sigh...), and s/he had NOT! So, six days before the beginning of classes I ordered the books and spent quite a while emailing the students to let them know how to get the book and going over their options. I'm at peace now, and I'm hoping for the best, but it was TOUGH! whatever, everything will be fine, I know it.