One shot, one opportunity

I'll never get a chance to do this again. 

Nine o'clock on a Tuesday evening, after the day has cooled and the humidity thinned.  A few cars drive down Norwich Avenue, and a few more further away on High Street, but for the most part things are quiet.  And dark. 

A few dishes sit in my kitchen sink and next to me on the porch lay my silent phone and a half-drank beer.  Bell's Oberon, to be exact.  Sometimes it helps with the writing to sit in free-flowing air with something cold to drink and, most importantly, no time constraints.  

I'm waiting on a chain reaction of things to happen for me to feel like I'm really going to Morocco.  I'm waiting on notification from an insurance company that I'm covered while abroad.  When I can prove I have insurance, I get the money from one scholarship.  When I get that money, I can buy a plane ticket.  Once I buy the plane ticket, I can start receiving money from another scholarship.  

In the meantime, I'm managing a perpetual tension between excitement about studying abroad (not to be confused with excitement about leaving Ohio) and impatience over the real and perceived gastropodic slowness that has marked every step of trying to study abroad this time around.  If from life we seek guidance as to the structure of divine reasoning and decision-making, then I can only deduce from personal experience that God's creating the universe in seven days did not occur via bureaucracies.

Soon enough, this frustration will pass and in its place certainty, excitement and perhaps indigestion will fill the void.  And when it does, I'll never get a chance to do this -- to capture this moment -- again.  Until then, all I can do is sit on my porch and enjoy a beer.  Good night.