But It's Hard to Say Goodbye, My Love...

Today, I had my last talk with my shrink. No...don't worry. I'm not about to go into the deepest recesses of my id. I bring up this fact only because this man has been instrumental in getting me out of the fog of depression I have been in since losing my last full-time, permanent job in April of last year. And I really will miss him, as he has said he really will miss me.

For about a week now, I have been saying good bye. First came good bye to all of my furniture and most of my worldly possessions. I know that sounds vapid and shallow, but it's not quite like that. It was more that I was saying goodbye to the vision of life all of those things represented--to the focus on doing home improvement projects instead of life improvement projects, to avoid seeing how miserable I had been even when working.

Saturday, I said goodbye to my apartment--the apartment I had just moved into when my search was featured in the New York Times Real Estate section three years ago. It's amazing how much a person's view of life can change in just three short years. In that limited time, I have lost everything and regained myself. For the first time since graduating from college, I really feel as if I am about to embark on something I really want to be doing. Not something I thought I should explore in the hopes of ending up with the kind of corporate ratrace life the world expects people like me to have. Not something I was grabbing on to because I didn't have a job and needed to "grab onto" something in order to hunt for one. But something I really, in my heart of hearts, want to do.

There is very little left to do in terms of preparation, besides Sunday packing, picking up my first-ever Taiwanese currency tomorrow, and having my last Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah in New York (at least for now).

But even in this time of saying goodbye, I am still learning things. Last Saturday night, I went out with some friends from the teacher training course I took. We were at a bar in the East Village when one of my friends introduced himself to a woman who turned out to be another ESL teacher--and a New York City Teaching Fellow! I had been under the impression that Teaching Fellows did not recruit for ESL. But I was glad to meet living proof that this is not true. Learning this has opened up a new possibility for life post-Taiwan. Finally, I feel as if I am moving on a real career path and not just grabbing desperately for a job. Finally!