The Process[ing] of Leaving

so two weeks from today, i’m leaving mussoorie…i’m leaving mussoorie…i’m really leaving. i don’t think it quite sinks in. it’s kind of like when i tried to tell myself i was really coming to india and it wasn’t until i got here that i believed it…hmm…sometimes i still don’t believe it… where was i? oh yes. i’m leaving mussoorie and as you can tell, i’m having a hard time sorting my thoughts, my emotions, my heart. with no premeditated plan for this post, i just start writing. perhaps typing will slow down my thoughts and help them find some kind of logical manifestation. the process of writing is a beautiful thing…the words find the struggle…the sentences answer the questions… here we go.

this place has been good to me; i’ve found comfort between its peaks. it’s been patient, letting me learn at my own, stubborn pace. i remember my first day out on the trails…i had no idea how i was going to get home. last week, i navigated them without getting lost once. that was a big deal. i’ve seen the seasons change from the electric green of monsoon, into the a period affectionately called ‘the most beautiful time of the year’ [aka october] and into the constant state of cold in the winter. we’re now in ‘sprall’…a spring, summer, fall time. it’s weird. i miss spring. monsoon is around the corner, and i’m glad i’ll miss the mold!

the hillside community here is transient…constantly coming and going. but while i was here, they welcomed and accepted me. there isn’t history to our relationship, but there is depth of understanding and common purpose. that seems to be enough. for a season, we walked this path together, enduring all of life’s ups and downs. i’ve had a lot of ‘lasts’ with them recently…i haven’t been home before 10pm in the last week and for a girl who’s usually in bed by this time, that’s quite a social life. people take goodbyes [and hello's] in stride because they’ve had so many. sometimes its easy to wonder if you’ll be missed or remembered. but i’ll remember them.

this strange house became home. i got used to the 3″ foam mattress and now prefer the simplicity of a bucket bath. i learned to rest and enjoy the silence. my list of ‘titles read’ has grown to almost 20 and the ‘ones to read’ has exponentially multiplied. i like plants more and cars less. a different pace of life here, a 40-hour work week now seems busy. living and working in the same building is a beautiful thing. i could get used to this. i wake at 6 am, though i don’t have to begin work on the other side of the wall until 8:30. the reason for the earliness? i like mornings; i really like mornings. i want to be up to enjoy them.

i have more confidence now than when i arrived. perhaps removing myself from the things i usually let define me has allowed me to let them go and not just ignore them…i like the freedom this living brings…you should try it. there’s less desire to conform to a standard set for me but a greater hunger to step into the unique one created for me. i think i’m more me than i was before and i’m pretty sure that is a good thing.

so three weeks from today, i’ll step back into a world that has always been familiar, the only thing i had ever known. i didn’t learn the way of the ocean until i was twenty…five years later i’ve set my feet in more major bodies of water than i can count. all of my memories growing up are set in the plains of kansas, now my mind also holds experiences from living on three continents. it’s hard to think of adjusting back to a place i came from, a culture that brought me up. will i fit the same way i did before? will i forget how i lived here? what i saw? who they are? why i came?

is there a way to turn the questions off? or at least delay them for a few weeks? argh. the curse of the ever-processing mind…three volumes full now tell this indian story. in architecture school, we learn, it’s all about process…the end result isn’t as important as the process of getting there. i think life is the same way. it’s less about the finish line, the climax, the apex of what you accomplish on earth and more about the race you run while you’re here. but oh, sometimes it can be exhausting.

see photos from my last days here.