Leaving

It's coming. As of Saturday I'll have left home, left behind my family and friends, left the country. There's a strange irony in all my talk of leaving lately. I seem to be forgetting the place to which I'm arriving. Neither the piles of clothing and the half empty suitcases on my bed or the 2 or 3 good byes I say each day, are enough to make me truly believe that in two short weeks, I'll be stepping out of a tiny plane, onto the banks of the Mekong river in Laos.