It Begins Now

I spent all of Friday in a blue funk and I could not understand why. At first I thought it was because I had started the day by pissing off people from 8 in the morning; but I'm way too thick-skinned, and probably too misanthropic, for that to bother me for long. Still, I spent all day feeling sorry for myself for the most trivial reasons (and probably pissing of manymore people in the process). Then, late in the evening, it dawned on me what had happened.

A couple of months ago, my company decided to move me to a new assignment in Boston (Massachusetts, not Lincolnshire, in case I have any British readers). I've had time to get used to the idea, but in truth it seemed far off in the future because the actual date of my move had not been fixed. That changed on Friday when my new boss made it clear that by the end of June, I would either be in Boston, or I would be in deep doodoo.

So now there is a date. And it's less than three months away. And it feels like it's tomorrow. I have twelve weeks or less before I pack my bags and leave on a jet plane. I know what you are thinking: "Twelve weeks is a long time, so stop whinging you snivelling infant". You're missing the point. There is a clock and it is counting down. I can almost hear the ticking. It used to count in months, now it's in weeks and soon there will only be days left.

I have so much unfinished business! So many things I had planned to see in Asia this year! I spent last Christmas planning my travel in 2008 to Laos, Vietnam, Tibet and Australia and now I don't know when (if?) I'll get to go. There are so many people to say goodbye to, and some of those people deserve really looong goodbyes.

(And there are so many places I still haven't eaten at in Singapore!)

I could go on and on and on but ... that way lies despair. So I won't go there.

Now that I know what's been biting me, I'm going to bite back. I'm going to make the next twelve weeks count and I'm going to start today. Twelve weeks from now when I sit by an airplane window and take a last, parting look at skyscrapers sprouting out of a carpet of tropical foliage, I'll still be sad; but I'll also be satisfied. Because twelve weeks from now I'm going to look back and say to myself "Dude, you really went out in style!"