Settled and settling

I am going to Uganda.

Told my boss last week and she took it with a grace and level of support that humbled me. I have always loved my boss, although occasionally she has given me cause to want to throw myself out the nearest window, but I was most scared of this part. I spent two days, after signing my contract to go to Uganda, with my hands shaking, my jaw clenched, and a stomach in knots over the idea of "telling." That day, actually, it was ten days ago, I walked into her office no fewer than six times and then chickened out. I was about to chicken out again when a good friend, a Marine Corps officer, took me to lunch and, well, "Marine-d me." That, coupled with my dear friend, Kim, a former Army MP, who told me that "You may be a white woman with the soul of a black woman, but you are demonstrating nothing but pure white woman insecurities here... you are way stronger than this...now get your back up and get going" finally got under my skin and bucked me up enough to do the deed.

I was expecting the worst but got the best. I got support, a hug, a thanks for my professionalism in how I told and the arrangements I had made, and for all that I had accomplished in my job. Then, my boss who never cries, cried. Hugged me, said that I would have her support and recommendation for the rest of the days I walked the Earth, and then cried. Then I lost my shit and cried too. And cried, and cried. For an entire week, I did nothing but cry...and I am not the weepy type.

This, by far, has been the most difficult thing I have ever done in my life.

Not difficult because I don't think it's the right decision (I would never have done it if I hadn't), but difficult in the fact that these moments make you realize how much you love people and how much people, who you never expected, actually love you too.

OK, before I get too Zen on your collective asses, I should disclose that I am also slightly medicated at this moment.

Following my "telling," and all the things that went along with it...I had a bit of a breakdown. My mind started spinning over all that I had to do/accomplish in three short weeks so I decided the best remedy was to tune into the food network, get a bottle of wine, and sit and stare for four days while the enormity of what I was about to do sunk in. I was paralyzed. I had a list of about 400 things to accomplish, but remembering to take the dog out and go to work everyday seemed overwhelming. I did manage to take the dog out but, work, well, I was about 50% on that one.

I went to the doctor last week for an initial pre-trip screening and she took one look at me and said, "What the hell is going on? Are you going through a divorce or some other trauma? Your blood pressure is up and you have a strange look about you..." I handed her my clutched, sweaty, "Lonely Planet Africa" guidebook and said, "No, I am fine, I am just moving to Uganda for a year or so...feeling a little panicky."

Then: "I am going to write you a prescription for Xanax, you indicated in your initial paperwork that you have been on this medication before and you are certainly in a state of high anxiety so this might help."

Me: "Um, I don't take drugs. Like: none. The last time I took a Xanax was in FL while visiting my brother (who, at one period in his life, could not be trusted not to sniff your home air freshner in need of a high) and I spent the entire evening drooling and extolling the virtues of a boxed cheese dip he had made for us for dinner and pointing out to him that I had just discovered my feet...no, I don't need to be medicated."

Doctor: "This will not hurt your mind, it will take the edge off so you can function, and I will write you the lowest dosage possible but, if you don't do something, you are going to have a stroke...so please, trust me here."

I took the prescription, ran to the drug store, waited the two hours to have it filled (and really, how long does it take to count out thirty pills?) and then picked it up and drove around with it in my car for three hours, looking at it suspiciously. Then, when the heart palpitations and the gag reflex kicked in again, I decided, "What the hell? It's my day off, if I need be, I will buy cheese dip and look at my feet for a few hours, better than this...the heart palpitations, the need to throw up every ten minutes..."

It kicked in about an hour later and, amazingly, the racing heart and the constant feeling of needing to vomit subsided. My hands stopped shaking and I was able to string together coherent thoughts. I actually went home and made a "real" list of what I needed to do...and I starting doing it. Later, that evening on the phone with my mom, she said, "You sound like YOU again...not like some wigged-out, hyper, incoherent, scared, nutcase. You finally sound like YOU for the first time in weeks."

OK, so, no, I am not extolling the virtues of anti-depressants. I have only dabbled in them once, back when I embraced bulimia as a good way to get attention for a few months back when I was 12, so I am no pro.

But tonight, as I sit here and write this blog, my head and my heart finally feel like my own again. I am calm but not strangely so...I am still looking at my bookshelf, my closet, and my dishes and thinking, "How the fuck am I going to take care of that in two weeks?" but...luckily, it is not having the normal physical side-effects that it normally does. Nor am I envisioning pink elephants flying outside my window that I am sure I can touch if only!!!....no, not feeling that at all. I can eat, I can have conversations with people without feeling rising paranoia, and I can finally begin to become excited about Africa and the fact that I am about to live there.

I can look at pictures of Uganda, write friends of friends who live there and get the "goods" on where I should live, the office I should rent, the places I should shop. I can schedule doctor's appointments, vaccination updates, the dog's spay appointment, and generally attend to my life.

Sure, I am still scared out of my mind. But, now, finally, I am also excited. I want to see my new home, meet all of the kind people who have spent hours of their time emailing a stranger and saying, "Dinner at our house the first night!," "We are going white-water rafting on 1 November and reserved a spot for you too," and, most of all, "We will meet you at the airport and make sure everything is OK...don't worry, it is going to be an incredible year!"

If I had any more tears left in me, I would cry. Not out of sadness but out of how kind people really are...and these "people" are not just Americans...but mostly Brits, Aussies, Germans, etc., etc. They are trusting that they will like me because one of their friends happens to like me. They don't yet know that I was/am the woman who had to take a prescription for Xanax to get through my terror...they don't know that I am about 1/4 as brave as people think I am. But, they don't seem to care.

And, their not caring and the love that I have received from all corners in this strange move somehow makes it all OK.

I don't think I will need the Xanax much longer...because Life is kind. And, ultimately, if you follow your heart, you'll probably end up where you are supposed to be.

For me, for now, that is Uganda. But the army of friends and angels who are on my side give me strength.

And the shopping is good, I hear.