You Are Cordially Invited to a Pity Party.

Ugh. I got online today with such good intentions. I brought a pad of paper to the computer desk to write down job options for which I am qualified. I was going to spend some more quality time with Craigslist and idealist.org, but this time, with gusto and purpose. I was going to look up the definition of "vivisection." (Wait, just because I'm feeling sorry for myself doesn't mean my vocabulary has to suffer- 1) the cutting of or operation on a living animal usually for physiological or pathological investigation; 2) minute or pitiless examination or criticism. Ah ha. Knew it). I was going to blog about something not-depressing, for a change.

Instead, I inadvertently tripped over about a dozen emotional landmines reminding me that my entire world from the past year is going back to Rwanda, and I am not.

I mentioned before how the trail of circumstance leading up to Me Not Going Back has left me feeling a bit like a jilted girlfriend, confused and wanting answers. I'm beginning to wonder if I similarly should treat Rwanda+all-that-that-entails as an ex-boyfriend who's holding me back. Make a clean break. Don't look at his facebook pictures, or read his blogs, or listen to his music--no, anything but music to maintain emotional equilibrium--or try to remember, or write down, or ask for updates about his life, or see who else he's been romancing, and how it's all getting on without you just fine. At least, not until you're in a secure relationship of your own.

But then, if you lose all of that...what's left? Do you lose a part of yourself, too?

There are bigger problems in the world. Children are dying of AIDS, and being sold into the sex trade, and people are dying of cancer, and dolphins are being mutilated, and bad people are getting things they don't deserve. The "why" of all that is intensely more profound than any narcissistic vivisection (I swear I wasn't planning that, it just worked) I can muster for the embarrassingly-small semi-tragedy of me not going back to Africa.

So. I'll let you know when I've evolved past self-congratulatory whining. Till then, I should probably just avoid the internet altogether.