Do we miss what we have only when we lose it?

I realized that I may leave Voinjama and Liberia very soon . For the moment it's still up to me. Next month I will take a long leave and then when I come back I may check out after 20 days. In this case, I still have only 5-6 weeks of work to go. If I want. Then....maybe long vacations, maybe another mission, maybe I will be lost in my own country and in my own life. I may be lost in the same things I am missing here and that I'm looking forward to rebuilt once I go back.

So, when I think I may really leave, I feel sad and I imagine myself missing Voinjama, the people I met here, even the ones who gave me hard time, just because I feel that I will have nothing while here I was part of something. When I'm having a very nice time with my friends, when we are planning our next days here, when we are sharing a smile, a word, a way of saying that can only be shared and understood here, I wonder: will I miss so hardly my life here only because I won't have it anymore? Is my flatmate feeling strange to be out of "Voinjama gang" just because he is not in Voinjama anymore? Was he, are we, so happy with what we have when is there everyday? Do we really live it all, with joy and intensity when we have it? Knowing that I may have a bad time in missing what I have now, as if it was the best life I could have ever had, makes me doubt sometimes of my decision. Leaving a mission, a place, an experience that was so much part of our lives, but that also gave us very difficult moments, gives you at first some kind of adrenaline, the freedom and comfort of being somewhere else. But then, when this feeling settles down, a bitter taste may come and I will end up divided again in too many different worlds.

Compared to what I experienced when I left my first mission, I think this kind of work and life has taught me how to manage attachment to places and persons you feel so deep in your life and all of a sudden are not there anymore. Especially when you put in everything you do a big part of you. We did not change what we are, but we have always knows from the beginning that we are living a kind of parallel life, it's our life and will always be our. There are always, somewhere in us, already new horizons and space for new persons. And there is always, present, the perspective of what really counts and what we really want to bring with us. We know what makes us come back. We are somehow prepared to the sadnss that leaving a mission can involve, at the same time we know that we will manage to keep in touch with real friends. I've no doubt that, if I leave, I will see again some special persons I met here.

But still, jumping into the unknown it's not easy.