Absence

The day I went to pick up my visa was the hottest in recorded meteorological history of Serbia. As I stepped off the sidewalk onto one of the busiest streets in Belgrade a gust of thick hot wind hit my body and I realized looking up the empty street that the city was deserted.
Absence seems to be my key word of this summer. The empty streets, a summer full of events which I missed because I was busy, the absent friends that I didn’t get to properly say goodbye to. I’ve been absent from this blog for a while, because I couldn’t find the time to write and I’ve been generally absent-minded for months, finding it difficult to do any work because I knew I was leaving, and as difficult to prepare for leaving, because I wasn’t sure it was really going to happen until the last minute.
Well, I am leaving. We’re leaving. Tomorrow morning Ivan and I will be on our way to New York. We have done so much and there are still so many unknowns. I don’t know how I feel. Everybody around me keeps crying. We’ll be back next summer for a few weeks. I know this is what we wanted and I am happy, but I’ve never been away from everything I know. So far away. For so long.
I ‘m going to stop now before I start to cry.