Of course, I’m here to teach English, but still have time to contemplate love via fax and shooting stars. This week was good and started out great with a Monday a.m. two-page-long fax from boyfriend. I was very surprised! I felt by now he had given up on me, and given up on communicating with me, and was mad, frustrated or turned-off by the lack of contact we’ve had during the entire month.

Not so! He inferred that he entirely misses me and wants me back. He is thinking of me every day. I wasn’t sure either what was going on. Those near last words as I left his house on that terrible last night kept echoing in my head, “I know this is a dumb question, but what about us?” as we both started crying, tears streaming down our faces. It was awful. That tore me completely apart.

I Still Cry

And I still cry, when I think of walking to my car, and back and forth on that awful evening before I left. It was the longest walk I’ve ever made. Besides the walk up the church aisle at Grandpa’s funeral. I hated it. Sometimes I think I must be the loneliest person in Slovakia. But then I remember that it’s only temporary.

Dagmar knows too what that night was like. She also had a last night with Hari (now her husband of 30-years) before leaving for two years of galivanting to Paris, London, and San Diego. It’s not fun. It was awful. I still remember the dinner at Sammy’s Wood Fired Pizza- we hardly ate. And I hated to go into his apartment afterwards, now I’d give anything to be walking back to his door. I think he hated me to go inside too, as we knew how hard it would be to leave.

And it was. We didn’t even kiss, we only hugged each other, held each other tight in our arms and let the tears stream hot and steady. We played cribbage in between, and I won, then cried and held each other some more. I hated leaving and I feel so awful thinking about it now. I love him and I can’t help it. What’s a girl to do. I have written and told him so, but finally this week, I received confirmation that he is feeling the same way! I didn’t know what he was thinking, since we had no real contact.

Life Inventory

I know it’s only for three months, so I better snap out of it. The problem/opportunity is, “What the hell am I gonna do next?? How will my life look?” I’m glad I’ve gotten out of the rut, tread water mill I was in. Just what next?

Yes, as mom said, I’m doing a real life inventory. At least I’m only in my first adulthood. Don’t even know what I want right now. I thought I did, but maybe not. “Sometimes the very thing you’re looking for, is the one thing you can’t see. Sometimes the sun goes round the moon 🌝, sometimes the snow comes down in June. Isn’t this world a crazy place.” From a popular song of the time, by Vanessa Williams.

Shooting Stars

As I was walking home tonight, first on the way to school at 17:30 the sky was so pretty blue. Then, I saw Venus, the first evening star. Star 🌟 of love. Yes, I believe in love via fax and shooting stars in Slovakia. 

On the way home, I was still asking myself/the universe why am I here? What am I supposed to learn? Give me another sign I’m doing the right thing. I was thinking of the shooting star 🌠 I saw in San Diego on the evening I dropped Helen off after my birthday dinner.

That night as I drove home, I was questioning my decision, on leaving everyone who cared about me the most, and just then I saw a sign, a shooting star 🌠 over the bay. So I knew, and had confidence that I was doing the right thing.

Well just as I was again questioning my existence here and looking for a sign…I saw a huge shooting star 🌠 so big in fact, I had time and had to look again to be sure it wasn’t a light. Yes, it was indeed a star 💫, shooting across the sky waving at me with a message from the gods, or message to believe, trust, follow my true self and have faith in myself and in what I’m doing.

There is a reason why I’m here although I don’t know yet, what it is. Everything will work out very specially. And it best- I didn’t travel this darn far for nothing.

Thursday 4 March, 1999

This is an excerpt from my Kosice Journal, documenting my exodus from a (relatively happy) bustling life in beautiful San Diego, to (voluntarily) take a post teaching English in the newly independent eastern capital of Slovakia  during a very cold winter 1999.