walf

I am finding it so hard to stop myself from doing what is most painful - thinking in endings. Oh my goodness, this is my last full moon in Morocco, this is the second to last time I'll hamam, this is the last time I'll have tea at so-n-so's house. I'm cracking. I'm frozen and numb with fear of leaving and the missing. I'm crazy busy wrapping up the life I've built here. I'm scrambling to organize the life there is to begin in the states.

Mostly I'm sad. So overwhelmingly sad to leave a place and people I love so much. It's such an impossible to remedy pain too, for I don't want to stay, or leave. I hate limbo and that's where I am. Changes, ugh. A good amount of the sadness comes from knowing I'll never be able to be right here again. Everything will be different when I leave. When I return it will be just as a visitor. I won't ever live here, with these people, at this age, ever again. I hate change and yet I'm someone who willingly walks into impermanence. Like "expiration dating" (Casey's term), I hate it! Arg!

I don't mean to whine, but I am. I've walfed. Walf is the verb in Tamazight "to get used to", and I have been hearing it every day lately. They have walfed to me, I have walfed to them, oh transitions. I don't want to apologize for the very different person I am returning to America, for it's a far more focused, happy and balanced person, but I am sorry if I offend. If I'm un-relatable and complainy, or sad and withholding. Who knows. I'll walf back to the states, but it's going to take some time.

I have 12 days left in Ait Hamza and I can't comprehend this.