Hold for an Announcement Please. . .

I am trying.  I know I had another blog hiatus, and that you all probably don't care enough to make me feel guilty but I do. I'll try to recount some of the recent shenanigans in a coming post.  Today though, today is an announcement. 

I'm leaving Jakarta.  I will lose the last of my few remaining marbles if I stay.  If you've read more than one of my blogs, you've figured out that I'm not a big proponent of Jakarta.  When other travels say "Oh you live in Jakarta?! What's that like?" I usually tell them it's shit.  There are amazing, beautiful places to see in Indonesia. . . Jakarta isn't one of them.  In fact it is one of the absolute last places you should bother going.  If you have to fly in to Jakarta to connect to Bali, Lombok, Sumatra, wherever, book your connecting flight out the same day.  Aceh has Sharia law, you know the one from Saudi Arabia that allows the government to hand out sentencing like being stoned to death or allowing a father to kill his daughter for dishonoring the family.  Yeah, that's the one.  I'd suggest Aceh before Jakarta.

That being said, there is one reason it's difficult to leave.  Or six.  Namely, Jenn, Julia, Donna, Carla, Zoe, and Sarah.  Vicki you're not on the list because you'll already be gone. You get the picture. I've made some very good friends here.  We've held each other up and sometimes helped each other hold it together.  We've made our own family when our own were so far away.  We have drunk, danced, ate, partied, swam, gossiped, traveled and been ill together (not all at once luckily).  They have been my sanity and the best of my insanity.  Through changes of jobs, temporary boyfriends, and loss of other friends. . . through the seasons, of which there are only two a year, they have been there.  I hope I have been there for them as well.  I think they'd say I have.

I have been a makeshift social coordinator for our little band of thieves. I'm the one who sends out messages about gatherings, bringing people together for food and frivolity. I don't doubt that life will go on without me here, but i doubt all these people will hang out together.  I've been told such a thing happened in Madrid.  I'd brought people from all different point of my life together in Madrid.  When I left they went back to their respective spheres of the city, no common point to attract them.  For this reason I feel bad leaving. We've had such good times together I wish for them to continue despite my absence.

I will be returning to Seattle.  There is a career opportunity there that I'm hoping to take advantage of, not to mention spending some time with my family.  They've not see much of me in the last five years or so. They're looking forward to seeing me.  They're almost as happy as my dog will be when I walk in the door and don't move away again in three weeks. I realize the things I'm most looking forward to are some of the simplest:  seeing my family, my own bed, walking my dog, parks, sidewalks, four seasons, Mexican food, American boys, drinking tap water, etc, etc, etc.

More about this to follow undoubtedly but now you know.