In a strange place

Two days before my flight leaves for home, I find myself in a strange place mentally. My brain is discombobulated. I have been exceptionally weepy--weepy like the fourth grader I was in Mrs. Richardson's class, back when a sarcastic remark or unkind look sent me into hysterics. I spent the better part of this morning crying at the immigration office. A man in a very large blue turban would not stop looking at me as I was sobbing wrecklessly, irrationally. Last night at a bar I hugged a friend goodbye, a teacher who will not be back next year, and I started to cry. And once I started, I couldn't stop. I had to abandon my mango daquiri and go home because this human faucet was stuck on full blast. (I think it was the violent, chest-heaving sobs coupled with the hickups that caused me to vomit out the taxi window on the ride home and not the copious amounts of alcohol I consumed.)

Normally, I can keep my head together. It's only on the precipice of big changes that I fall apart. The summer before I started teaching I had a spell. The October after Michael went back to Indiana I was in a similar place. Last July before I left for Thailand I lost it temporarily.

I recognize this as fear. The paralyzing fear of being in a new situation and not knowing the outcome. Will I be able to do it, will I do it with grace, and will I be successful?