2005-09-05 - 3:34 p.m.
Today marks one year since I left the Cleveland airport after crying in Catherine's arms for a minute and then Josh's arms for more than a few minutes. A year at this time, I was sitting on a stoop in Washington D.C., outside some small hotel, wondering what on earth I had done. I doubted I could make it through the week without going home and the thought of making it safely through a year was near impossible.
But I'm here, against everything I thought I could do. It turns out I'm fitter, stronger, braver, and more tenacious than I knew was possible in someone who is already a tad more stubborn than is healthy.
Two years is such a neat, clean little package of time to deal with here; the number of months, 24, has a lot of divisors (2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12) and it makes it easy to calculate percentages--time completed, time remaining. And there is such an enormous difference between the first year and the second year here, the amount of internal change immeasurable in size, that passing the one year mark is strange. It feels as if I've reached the peak of the mountain and I'm about to tip the toboggan down the other side, jump on, and ride siftly into the soft slopes at the end.
More than anything, it feels like two techtonic plates pushing against each other and one being subverted underneath the other (Jessica? The name of this is called what?), the one riding on top. Something is disappearing and diving, the other is ascending, climbing.
But I just wanted to share that today is a great day. I feel on top of the world, even if it means there's still another year to finish. For someone who thought he'd pass out after two feet in front of the starting gun, making it to the part where the people scream and through water on you is pretty great.
