now and not yet

before i complain, i just want to be sure i say that the blessings showering down upon us are incomparably better than any difficulty and that i recognize that the bad is there for a reason too, praise God. i hate to say it, but i understand what pat meant when she knew she was going back to school and was still 'transitioning' out. there's a weird sort of pulling away. i suppose i am doing that, too, but it really feels like at home, at work, with friends, something is slipping away. it feels similar to being spoken about in the third person--everyone making plans and talking about the future. and we're not included. i know what you're thinking: e, you're the one that made the decision to leave; everyone else is going on with their regularly scheduled lives. i know. i know. that definitely explains some of it. but not all of it. there's still an inexplicable and subtle ostracism. a separation of the sheep from the goats with me on the side of the goats. but this could be entirely chimerical. perhaps nothing has changed in peoples' minds and i was never included in the plans anyway. or perhaps it is more to do with greta and less to do with notre dame. in any case, we're still here. we're dying for attention. please feed the goats.