Homeward Bound...

I've been in Naperville and Chicago, Illinois for the last week. Actually, for a week and a day. The time has been good for learning my trade, for making acquaintances, for deepening friendships, and for reconnecting with old pieces of my life. I'm gradually finding a viewpoint from which I can see the encounter with Luke, the jumper, as part of my life. It's not a surreal, otherworldly event like a bubble in my life now, nor is it something so monolithic that my life stops or goes into turmoil trying to flow around it. It just is. It happened, and I was there and I took part, and now I'm moving on down the stream.

I will probably never know how Luke's life turns out. I don't need to know, though, in order to know that I did all that I could. For all my glib statements in the past about just wanting to do the right thing, just to do my part, not to be in control of anyone else's actions... it was a struggle for me to embrace that philosophy in this instance.

I'm very fond of the Beginning-Middle-End story structure wherein everthing has a significance to the plot and there is a conclusion in which all the loose story arcs are tied up. I don't like movies and short stories and books that leave plot threads dangling. I realized through this experience that I don't like that in my life, either. I want the episodes of my life to be encapsulated into neat storylines, to have endings, even though they're not "The End".

So, I'm headed back home, this is an ending to an episode of my life. I miss my dog, and I look forward to rejoining my friends. I had a birthday alone, and that was actually not bad at all. I had dinner with my aunt and uncle the night before, and I talked on the phone to all my family, so I was hardly alone. I've enjoyed the break from my routine, but at the same time I look forward to getting back to the parts of my daily life that I love.

Oh, and I had Real Chicago-Style Pizza at Gino's East in Naperville. yea!