On Leaving

So. As you may or may not know, I am leaving for Israel in under a month for a sabbatical.
Today I was thinking about it more than usual. Well, every day seems to see me thinking more about it. I don't know whether to be happy or sad or neutral or both or - oh, it's just a big mess.
Today a friend of mine held a holiday party. As usual, I got hyper on sweets and Izzy sodas. I do my best to live up to that reputation, even if it isn't always my choice as to what I do when I'm hyper. But now, it seems especially important to be with my friends as much as possible. It's really hard for me to think about the fact that when I leave, I won't see this every day. That part still seems a bit surreal to me. I know it's going to happen, but I only half believe it. Each day, each time I think about it, it seems more real. It's like I'm carving something over time. A year ago, it was a lump of rock with barely a shape, but now it's almost completely formed. And every time I see my friends at school, I try to make the most of it, to hold on to each moment - because soon I won't have this.
So today, as we watched X-Men and joked and screamed and laughed, I kept thinking to myself, Enjoy this. And I did. I thoroughly did, even though I have a runny nose and a bit of a headache. It doesn't matter anymore. I found this quote in Time magazine a few years back in an article titled, "Why Israel Doesn't Want Peace" (and I will get to my angry feelings about such things later):
"Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today."
It was in a picture, tattooed on someone's arm. Even though it was supporting an argument that I thoroughly do not agree with, I found myself thinking about that quote, so much that I committed it to memory. And now it's coming to my aid. That's what I'm planning to do with my last few weeks. That's what I'm planning to do with the rest of my life, really. I could die tomorrow. And what if I did? I'll know that whatever happens, I'll have had my time on earth to the fullest. I procrastinate sometimes, yes. But not when it matters. Now is the time. You want to live your dream? Today is the day. These few weeks, I don't care who tells me what and how.
At times like these, I feel as if I've stepped back to look at my world as a whole, and everything seems brighter, the colors sharper, yet the images blurred together in a mass of light and sound. Does it matter that I'm a small human being, only a blink to the millions, billions, trillions of years that our universe has in it? I look at my world, and it's imperfect. But that way it's all the more beautiful.