Anticipation

"Well," said Pooh, "what I like best—" and then he had to stop and think. Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn't know what it was called.   - A. A. Milne


Its surprising how much wisdom can be found in children's books. These books shaped our view of the world when we were young, but not much gets retained after that. Milne was right of course. The moment just before the long anticipated event always trumps the actual event. "Before" you are able to see the culmination of all your waiting and efforts, knowing that it will come to fruitation. "After" is well... only after.

I have come to the conclusion that the feeling during this period before freedom is better than the feeling I will have after. Now I can see the 2 long years of waiting finally closing. I can see the end only now. But after, it will be behind me. After ord there will be new questions to answer, new problems to face. I look forward to it. Yet at the same time I dread it.

I watched the disney cartoon Tangled recently. Perhaps the most poignant moment in the show was when Rapunzel and the thief guy whose name I cant remember were on the boat waiting for the sky to light up with lanterns:

"I've been looking out a window for eighteen years, dreaming about what it might feel like when those lights rise in the sky. What if it's not everything that I dreamed it would be?"

I have been waiting for ord since I enlisted in 13 April 2009. I know it won't be everything I hoped for once it has happened. I have always known. Yet I had to believe it would be. Believing kept me going through these 2 years.

24 days to ord...