there's things i remember and things i forget

These days, I find myself running through lists in my head. Silently cataloging the things I will miss when I've left the states and headed off to some as-yet-unknown African country. (Another story entirely, all that uncertainty.)

. Long, hot showers when I just stand and let the water beat down on my shoulders until I'm done thinking.
. Walks through my suburban streets lined with flame-orange trees, leaves drifting silently down as I pass under their branches.
. Stretching myself diagonally across my bed, limbs splayed out to cover the entire space.
. My mother's cooking (especially the rolls she just made, the ones with butter melted over their crisp tops).
. The luxury of getting in my car and driving to wherever I want. Just because.
. Calling a code and knowing that, within seconds, I will be surrounded by nurses, attendings, respiratory therapists and pharmacists.
. A closet so full of clothes that some days I find it hard to decide just how to cover my body.
. Sitting in my sister's hammock at the end of a day and talking about not really much of anything.


And then, all at once, the aperture on my perspective snaps wide open and everything comes into startling, narrow focus.

I'm going to a country in Western Africa, and I'm planning on missing things that those people have never had. The streets aren't safe because of pollution and overcrowding and violence. There are three doctors for every 100.000 people. Their sisters died at the hands of malaria, malnutrition and war.

And I care about what clothes I'm going to pack.


Who else sees the disconnect?