good luck topping this next year

Perhaps you have already heard the news (especially if you keep up with the much-more-oft-updated Coster3 blog) – the Boy is back! I can’t even tell you how ecstatic that makes me. Part of me scarcely believes he’s actually Stateside again; it’s all very surreal – kind of like when he left for Uganda in the first place.

The reasons for his leaving the Peace Corps are many and varied and have to do with administration and some personal angst, but you can read about it here (at least the first part so far). It’s probably better to get his perspective instead of hearing my extremely biased speculation. All that really matters to me is that he got himself out of a mentally-damaging situation that would have made him miserable for two years. I’m disappointed that the Peace Corps didn’t turn out to be what he thought it would be, but I can’t really articulate how amazingly happy it makes me that he’s close by now.

He actually came into Chicago this past Saturday – he flew from Brussels to O’Hare. Funnily, for the three nights prior, I kept having the recurring dream that he would show up on Saturday. I kept telling myself how improbable that would be (his leaving was supposedly just a possibility, not a certainty, at that point), trying to talk my hopes down, but that didn’t really work at all. So LotR and I went to Summerbreeze (carnival on the quads) to be outside, eat disgustingly delicious fair food, and generally help me de-stress. Around 3PM, I started to head back home, taking a different route than usual. When I get to my front door, I see two giant pieces of luggage.

For a few minutes, I was largely convinced that I was hallucinating. I cautiously inspected the bags (A Coster, Brussels to O’Hare). Then after assuring that he wasn’t hiding somewhere in the stairwell, I dragged the bags (all his earthly possessions) inside and tiptoed around the apartment throwing open closet doors to see if he was hiding (which is really dumb, since he doesn’t have keys). Then I call LotR with my voice close to hysterics, basically crying, and tell her what’s going on. I’m stressed like you would not believe. I’m also chatting with JBlaise on G-chat, partially to reassure myself that I wasn’t losing my mind. Both tried to talk me down a bit, but admitted that either the Boy had to be around or someone was playing the cruelest practical joke ever.

Finally, after another agonizing half hour or so, he showed up on my doorstep. And then I don’t really need to give you any details (although we later surprised Sqm and tBM, who were coming to visit partly because Sqm was flying out to Georgia – the country – Tuesday; Stoz was there too, but he was in on the surprise).

Best. Birthday. Ever.

The Boy stayed with me for a week; he left this afternoon to go back to IA for a stint. He’s going to try to go back and forth between Chicago and Cedar Falls, where (wait for it…) he and Stoz are planning to start their own computer company, Mind Forge Technologies. It’s an ambitious project, I’ll grant you, but I can’t think of two more capable people to be undertaking such an endeavor. If you’re in the market for a new computer… just a thought.

Anyway, it’ll be kind of interesting to see how everything will play out. I mean, I’m not going to be in Chicago or IA for medical school, so… It’s sort of useless to think about this now, I guess, but having thought about our relationship almost non-stop for about three-ish months now, it’s kind of difficult to turn off the subconscious, constant muttering in my head, but I just keep telling myself, “Hey, at least he’s not in Africa.”