the ending

Today, my dad woke me up with a text and a phone call around noon my time. He was in the London Heathrow airport, having just arrived from LA and continuing onto a connection to Dubai. My dad's on his way to start a new job in Abu Dhabi (right next to Dubai), a move he'd been thinking about making for the last year or so but never thought would be realised so soon. But here we are. 

This is all kind of hush-hush but not so much in my head. He's moving out there for at least a year, after which, if he likes it, my mom and sister will follow. This summer, my family's going to Abu Dhabi for about five or six weeks to check it out and see what could possibly be our next home. I am quite thrilled about this move, having lived & loved living in the MidEast way back when. It'll be great to go back and feel so much closer to the rest of the world again.

And yet.

It's hitting me ever so slowly what this entails. Because as excited as I am for the end result of residing in the Middle East, I keep forgetting what it'll take in the inbetween before we get there. Not the stress of shipping of stuff or all that crap, but the fact that this move means leaving home more permanently than I did last autumn.

When it hit me that I'll never get the California autumn nights I've been craving these past few weeks or to feel the carefree air that always accompanies the change from spring to summer, that I'll never get a whole year of Home until after uni, it hit me that, now, in fact, I'll probably never get a whole year of Home ever. Ever.

And to top it off, I won't be there to cherish what could be my last year in SoCal. Everything is so up in the air now -- there's no concreteness in any thought I have for the next couple of years. It's disconcerting.

But with my dad already there, soon to be settled, I can't help drown myself in the thoughts of what won't be home anymore. While I have this summer with mostly my mom (my brother'll be in summer school in Irvine), I've already missed the chance for last minute Home times with my dad.

I've missed weekly trips to Trader Joe's, which usually include a stop into Starbucks where they always know his order. I've missed his enthusiastic nagging as he tries to turn me into a hardcore yogi. I've missed the car rides down winding La Cañada roads when he'd play NPR or something classical turned up a little higher than normal. Or sometimes we'd just talk about anything and everything with the radio dimly playing in the background. I've missed him sitting at the kitchen table as a makeshift office so that he could work around us instead of behind a closed office door. I've missed walking into the nearest Apple store simply because it's an Apple store and we like to play around with the iPhones. I've missed him waking me up by opening my blinds and telling me to stop being lazy. I've missed watching late night movies that he's seen and I've never heard of. I've missed trips to Whole Foods where he's always disappointed to find they're out of that thick chocolate gelato. I've missed his collection of daily vitamins sitting on the counter, the one I'd ask about, in awe that he could swallow that one that was practically bigger than my thumbnail. I've missed him asking if I want this oversized sweater because it's too small on him but it's big and warm and homey so of course I want it. I've missed his yelling at me to clean the litterbox because his office stinks and my cat just pooped in there. I've missed him asking me to burn CDs for him. I've missed the random appearance of jugs of apple juice and loaves of olive bread in the kitchen that he'll buy just because he knows how much I love both...

It sounds like a eulogy but that's kind of what it feels like. Not about my dad but just about the everyday living with my dad at home, you know? He'll be home for maybe 10 days while I'm in CA this summer. That's nothing. After that, mid-July, we're all off to visit him in Abu Dhabi. 

I don't really know what to make of it. It's bad enough that I won't get to live up my California days (if, indeed, they are so swiftly ending) but to realise that bits of it have already ended without my past-self even realising it... well, that just makes it ten times worse. 

I don't really know. Again, it hits me how far away I am from home.

I have an exam in ... 10 and 1/2 hours. This exam is going to be a bitch. But come 3pm today, I'm done. I have a feeling this next week and half is going to fly by a lot quicker than I expect. But with home glittering at the end, it probably won't go quickly enough.