In the thick of it

     One of the biggest problems with this whole move is the paperwork. No one seems to know where this letter gets sent or what kind of background check you need, what number you call to get a human being on the line to talk about student loan deferment. It's easy to get discouraged. Lately I've been finding it harder and harder to picture myself in Spain. It was enough before, seeing myself hiking or drinking a beer in a café or travelling on a train. Now that all seems to be buried under mountains of forms. You start to realize, oh yah, this is why not many people uproot their lives to move to another country. It's not really the physical distance, or the money. Just the increasingly difficult acrobatics you have to perform to jump through their hoops. Time seems to move at two speeds: achingly slow or way too fast. When I think about the next three weeks without a day off, working at a desk all day then changing into my servers outfit, I just want it to fly by. Then I start checking off the days until my flight. With my bank account in the double digits and the list of things I still need to do, people I need to see, phone calls that need to be made...I want to sleep for a week.
    I'm in the thick of it now. But it will be over soon. A decision like this, an adventure like this, never happens when you've gotten plenty of sleep, are well rested and prepared. It kicks down your door when you've got one leg trapped in your jeans and your arms outstretched ready to fall.
    In three months I will be flying over the blue Atlantic, watching the sun rise over the Iberian peninsula, thousands of miles away from anyone that knows my name.