Friday, November 18

two years

last year, i was pretty much a wreck. i functioned and i like to think that i fooled a lot of people into thinking that i was doing great with this whole life transition thing. but the truth is, i was not. between november 5 and november 17, all of my thoughts were consumed by what we were doing a year ago that day. i would spend hours every day looking at pictures from our time in palestine, facebook stalking our old friends, not talking to people about all this, and just being really sad. looking back at my blog, you can see that i was really obsessed with the whole "moving on" theme from matthias' birthday through the end of the year.

and i think it was good for me. not the whole bottling-it-up-and-not-talking-about-it or facebook-picture-stalking things, but it's good to process, good to mourn, and good to move on. i definitely could have found more healthy ways to mourn, but it was important for me to process everything that had happened a year before.

yesterday was november 17. the day we left palestine. and i didn't even realize that until in the evening when someone asked me how long we had been back in the US. i had quite a full day - we had a big thanksgiving dinner for teen mops, so i was busy decorating, cooking, making sure all the details were taken care of. i had to take matthias to the doctor in the morning to make sure he doesn't have asthma (he doesn't). i spent the evening at teen mops, hanging out with teen moms and my other mentor friends, making sure everyone got enough food and had a great time.

thoughts of sadness, thoughts of missing palestine, thoughts of wishing for our old life - these thoughts didn't consume me. when i realized that it was november 17, i had a twinge of sadness, a moment of thinking back. but that's all it was. thinking back. which i think is appropriate. we've been here two years. and i finally really feel like we are here. or at least i am.

it's taken me a long time to get here. almost two years, in fact. and it feels good. it feels good that i can look back over by past blog posts and not burst into tears, but really be happy remembering our time in palestine. it feels good to have friends that we can have over, have playdates with, have birthday parties with - friends that i actually really like instead of thinking of how i miss our old friend. it feels good to have a church that jason and i are both excited about instead of thinking about how great our "not-church" group was in palestine. it feels good to be involved in groups that we love, both the work and the people involved, instead of thinking of how awesome paidia was.

so all this to say, i still do miss palestine. i will always miss it. i will always be sad that we had to leave in the way we did, that we had to leave our great friends, that we had to leave the place both our kids were born, that we had to leave the work we were doing. but i also am finally able to say that i am here. and i like being here. and thoughts of being there don't ruin my ability to be here. which i think is pretty good for me. 

2 comments:

Unknown said...

"they" say that it takes two years to feel at home someplace. glad to see you are able to love both the memory and the present without them canceling each other out.

Cal said...

Sounds a lot like you mother after moving from ca to ar