Strange thing-- the closer my departure for Virginia, the more calm I am. My worries and fears and doubts have mostly faded away, as if what was really bothering me was merely impatience at having to wait... and wonder... and wait. Sure, if I think about it, I can summon up the same troubled thoughts and waiting what-if's-- they're still there and still real. But somehow displaced by a new and pleasant readiness to go.

Perhaps too my week here in Houston has helped, has served as a buffer between what is behind me and what may be ahead. A week here has smudged the edges of the life I had-- not so much that I begin to forget, but only so that who I am has become just vague and indistinct enough to ease me into and through all the changes that I know must happen. Is this another reason I have chosen to do this? To remake myself? To start over? If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.

It will be good to go. It will be good to see friends from conference and good to make new ones. Good to rise to the challenge of sorting through the morass of teachings and expectations and good to confront a bit more of whatever it is I believe. I wish, just a tiny bit, that it all lined up a little more.

What to do, what to do? I've lost all sense of what needs to be done. But why fret? In the end, I'll simply get on an airplane and go.