"...in exile from the body..."

...commented john the other day on josh's blog. That's it exactly. That's what I feel. That's exactly what I didn't feel when we were doing the clintonville home group thing. So Joni Mitchell was right: you don't know what you've got 'till it's gone. Except when you do. I knew all along it was going to be tough leaving all of you columbus-ites and former columbus-ites. But it's even more than that. When your life is broken up into blocks of TV watching, you can pretty much exist anywhere, as long as you have your (m)TV. It's like the electric box replaces human interaction. But when you've made most of your life around relationships, you're not very transferrable. I think I got through the first few months in part because of the "mission" of being here in the first place and the small, pretty superficial relationships we've been able to form. Plus the occasional phone calls, emails, blog comments, and even visits from some of you guys helped a lot. But now as the pressure really ramps up (if that's even possible) toward the end of the semester, there aren't many people to lean on, or in my case, to spout off useless knowledge to. I'm trapped at the library or in my study most of the time. B takes it as much as she can, but when terms like "ontology of information" and "instrumentalist constructivism" start getting bandied about, she loses interest right away. I can't blame her, honestly. We did find a church; that's a good thing. The road was pretty convoluted getting there...a blog entry for another day, I'm thinking. And last Friday, only a little while after I whined out that last post, we attended our first small group meeting. I take a freaking long time to warm up to people, so I can't say that I actually "enjoyed" myself, but I knew it was a good thing, something we should keep doing, people we should continue to invest in. Best of all--and this helps me quite a bit as I live vicariously through my wife and daughter--B met another young mom and some other young married women who she really connected with. B is now in three different moms' groups, and that gives me hope. I have to go to class: presentation day today. But let me use this sentence to thank all of you for calling and writing over the weekend--Brant, John, Scott, Matt, and Andy most of all. It is both wonderful and terrible that I have such good friends only a 5 hour drive away. p.s., did I mention that we're only 1 1/2 hours from Chicago? If you want to go there, you can stop by here on your way....