Well, I guess I'm not much of a capitalist.

I realized this morning, after hearing about the raise I would have gotten had I stayed past the end of my organization's fiscal year in October, that I will be taking a $40,000 a year pay cut to take this job in Nicaragua. I also realized that this did not factor at all into my decision to take the job, having only thought about it, well, a couple of weeks after I took it.

I have always struggled when people I'm close to are leaving. On one hand, I want to be with them as much as possible, but on the other hand, I want to develop relationships with people I know will stay here, and being the separation process with the people that are leaving. Now that I'm the one who is leaving, I realize how painful it is to be on the receiving end of this confusion. (Actually, it's always painful to be on the receiving end of a relationship in which the other person is trying to navigate how they feel about you and how to act around you. But that's another story.) I know that my close friends here want to be with me until I leave, and are sad that I'm leaving, but I also know that some of them (mainly, my roommate), are starting to push away. People at work are a little less friendly, and I am engaging so much less in meetings, because they all concern policies that won't be enacted until after I leave. It's completely natural and healthy. But I don't like it, because it reminds me of all of the things and people I'm leaving behind.