Re-living the emotions

One of the positive things about keeping this blog is that I can read past entries and remember how I was feeling back then. Of course, I do not write everything that happened in my life or how I feel, as something is too personal and I “censor” the content sometimes so that my family and friends do not worry too much. I was reading some entries from November- December 2008. This is precisely three years ago when I was getting ready to take the previous UN post in this country. I seemed to have wanted to postpone the departure, feeling nervous about moving and sad about saying good-byes. Very similar to how I am feeling. I even described it as “pulling off a bandage” to do this quickly and get over with the pain. Going through the same emotion and same thought patterns, I wonder if I haven’t grown since then, but then again it gives me some kind of assurance that “I felt that way, but, look, everything turned out all right or even better than all right at the end. So, you will manage this time, too. ” Luckily this time, my departure is not as traumatic as three years ago. I am not moving to the other side of the world; I will be almost in a same time zone (1 hour difference) in a more or less same region; I preliminarily plan to come back in February next year for a short visit; I could leave some stuff here etc; I have already worked with the UN and have a better idea of what it is going to be like.

There are certainly things that do worry me. I have never worked in a Muslim country before; the aid community is very small there, so there would not be many expats. I am not sure if there are many activities to do in the evening on the weekend on such a tiny island, which may seem trivial but is very important for me to maintain a good quality of life. But, I have to remember, I could have chosen to stay in NY and live there rather comfortably, but I opted for this- the excitement of a new country, learning different culture and being close to the “field” and feeling much more fulfilled with my work. So, there you go, I will have all that and tons of seafood and fish in addition, not to mention the beautiful beaches!