Dev Does Goodbyes

It's one in the morning, and I have a plane to catch in 8 hours.

I've always been a procrastinator, but when it comes to packing I tend to do it way early. Not this time, though. I'm leaving for the airport in under 6 hours, and my carryon is empty. My suitcase is open and only partially full. My bed has clothes and miscellaneous... stuff, strewn all across it.

It's not that I'm inherently disorganized or that I'm unable to pack. It's just that I feel like, once I'm all done and ready to go, I'll have to start saying my goodbyes.

That's something I'm really bad at, and always have been. I consider myself a fairly confident person, and sure of myself, but the other night when my nephew wrapped his arms around me and cried, I felt all my resolve draining. When he said "I don't want you to go," over and over, I found myself thinking, I don't want to go either.

I do want to go; I just don't want to leave.

Three feet away from me, my fiance Byron plays a computer game. We've lived together for over a year and a half, and have spent only a few nights apart since. How am I going to sleep, night after night, in an unfamiliar bed without my cuddle bud? How am I going to look him in the eye tomorrow morning and know that I'm going on a huge adventure without him?

The hardest goodbye though, I think, is going to be my dog. My nephew is sad that I'm leaving but knows I'm coming home for Christmas; my fiance was the one who encouraged me to chase this dream in the first place. My family and friends understand and support my decision to do this thing.

But my dog?

Max isn't going to know that I left to get things done for America. He's not going to understand that I'm... building trails or keeping up national parks or providing disaster relief, or whatever I end up doing. How can I explain to him that I still love him and am not leaving forever?

All Max will know is that I'm not here.

I know he'll be thrilled when I come home for the holidays... but what about two weeks later, when I leave for another 7 1/2 months? He'll be upset all over again. When I come back for good, I know he'll be happy and get over it... but I hate knowing what I'm going to put him through. He's going to be upset and hurt and confused, and that's going to be my doing.

When I moved into an apartment across town and couldn't keep him for awhile, I left him at my mom's house. Even though I came by to visit pretty often, she told me that Max would lay next to my old bedroom door for hours, or wander around the house whining and looking for me, or stare out the window. How can I knowingly put him through that?

I'm going to go to Denver, and Max is going to be fine, and my family's going to be proud of me. I'm sure I'm going to enjoy and be rewarded by my time served in Americorps. But the next few hours until I leave? They're going to be torture.