This is one of those days that I\u2019m paid to sit in a chair, at a certain place, for a certain number of hours. This is the corporate America that makes my teeth itch. A couple of days ago, Sean said, \u201cAren\u2019t you glad you didn\u2019t go to Africa?\u201d in light of my baker, my job opportunities, my new house, my friends. \u201cIt\u2019s not that simple,\u201d I replied. I\u2019m not \u201cglad\u201d that I didn\u2019t go to Africa, because that is an entirely different path I can\u2019t even imagine right now. I know that right now, if I were in Africa, I would be thinking, \u201cI can\u2019t believe I almost didn\u2019t do this\u201d. It may sound phony or trite but even love does not outdo a calling. I\u2019ll have to reconcile all of this someday.<\/p>\n
And, like I said, love is easy when the other person is leaving forever, and not just because of the freedom it creates. The day my baker told me he was leaving was to be the day that I talked to him about our relationship. He has traits, practices that would have been an issue if we had more time together. Everyone can\u2019t believe how well I\u2019m taking his leaving, but the fact is, we aren\u2019t entirely ready to be together. I don\u2019t know if he\u2019ll grow out of these things; I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s youth or if it\u2019s just the way he\u2019ll always be. It\u2019s also a huge defensive maneuver on my part because he is 23, passionate, wild, and moving to Europe for several years. I am going to let him go. Completely, cleanly, clearly, let him go. And allow myself to go, too. No matter what it feels like to be around him, to wake up next to him. No matter.<\/p>\n
If I were in Africa, I would not be paid to sit in a chair and write to all of you every day. That was my point. If I were working in service, I might be miserable, but I wouldn\u2019t be paid to sit in a chair.<\/p>\n
If I were in Africa, I would not have gone to the Farmer\u2019s Market this morning and bought heirloom tomato plants to start my garden. Nor would I have put seeds in my bird feeder, nor would I have seen three hot-air balloons in the morning sky above my cottage. I mean, I\u2019m not a fool. I know a good thing when I see it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This is one of those days that I\u2019m paid to sit in a chair, at a certain place, for a certain number of hours. This is the corporate America that makes my teeth itch. A couple of days ago, Sean said, \u201cAren\u2019t you glad you didn\u2019t go to Africa?\u201d in light of my baker, my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlwms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlwms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlwms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlwms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlwms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mlwms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlwms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlwms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlwms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}