Hi everyone!
Hope y’all are doing well. I’m way behind on personal emails and the internet has been a struggle so I’m writing this in the cabin again. When I’m at work, there’s so much to do that I can’t really do anything personal on the internet sadly. When I think about the amount of cat videos I’m missing, I’m truly devastated! Lately, when I’ve gone to a cafe/hotel to connect or Skype after work, it’s been a real bust. The connection will go in and out, or a conversation will start and the freeze and head to the pooper. Blargh. At least it’s enough to check email, and thanks to everyone who’s kept in touch! It means a lot. It really scares me to be out of touch with people, because I don’t want my physical distance to equate lost relationships. Luckily, my parents have been able to keep in touch via phone calls. I would love to regularly keep in touch with more people too. That is definitely one of my longer term goals. My super cheap school cell phone does not have the best sound quality, so sometimes it’s tough to understand even English- but at least it functions if I drop it!
Lately, things have been a little challenging because of the feeling of isolation from home and all my stupid gut issues. Today my stomach inflated and I had awful cramps. I hate being on a limited diet and really pity myself sometimes (i.e. why do I have to feel so sick every time I have dairy/gluten/too much sugar; why do I have terrible eczema if I eat too much fruit, eggs or peanut butter). That being said, I just reread something I wrote back in November about being sick with C Diff and how I was recovering. It’s not the best writing, but I’m glad I wrote something to personally remind myself of how sick I was (migraines, not being able to keep any food/liquid in my system for more than 2 hours at most/terrible pain/depression from the strong drugs, etc). It helps to remember how sick I could be, and I’m thankful that there is a solution to avoid that misery even if it makes eating a little boring (it’s worth it!).
I’ve also been a little down because I feel like I keep getting feedback that I’m everybody’s w-e-i-r-d-o. While at one point I would’ve taken pride in this, it’s really getting on my nerves. From the locals, there’s been so much fixation on the fact that I’m single and childless. Even though I’ve had this experience before, I think because I’m in a small town it’s more extreme. To be fair, this attention is not coming from everyone, but I still want to know what is the big fascination!? It’s made me a little lonely because eventually I don’t want to be single forever and I would love to have kids some day. Who doesn’t want to be in a loving relationship? And P.S. it’s not like I forget that I’m unmarried. I’m very much aware of the fact that I’m alone. Being in a foreign country does that.
From the international visitors (again not everyone), I meet a lot of people traveling who are perplexed about why I’m here and why I wouldn’t want to leave immediately and go to the US. When someone this week asked how long I’d be here and I replied that I verbally committed to a few years, her response was “but WHY?!?”. I met another woman at a hotel and her 3rd question to me was if I’ll ever go back to the US and where I’ll spend the rest of my life. What-in-the-world?! It’s been weird and it’s incredible how quickly people will ask personal questions within minutes of meeting. This happens all the time. I really wish I could tell people to hush up, but I understand that there’s some kind of fascination. At the same time, It’s really nobody’s damn business how long I’ll be here or my future plans. Yes, that’s something for me to think about and I want to be in close proximity to people I love or at least visiting often, but you know what? Life is not meant to be planned out all perfectly. What fun is it to know where you’re headed at every turn? My friend here and I were talking about how even when we do plan things, other things end up happening. My uncle Chris always liked to say: “Plans? You make plans?!?”, and then would promptly ask me where I see myself in 5 years. Ha! Nobody really has control over their future, and if we did, the world probably wouldn’t be a better place. It seems mostly possible that it could be worse. Isn’t it really the great gift of life that we don’t know what’s ahead? Yes, sometimes what’s ahead includes terrible tragedy and loss that no one wants, but who wants to know that’s coming? And with every challenge, it just makes the good moments sweeter. But that’s my two cents.
Since what we all can control is how we choose to respond to people, I’m going to focus on the positive and being grateful for what I have instead of wanting what I don’t necessarily need or can’t create. So here’s what I’m grateful for from the past few weeks:
---Talking to my parents
---Skyping with friends!
---Sending postcards
---Following my friend’s artist residency in Mendocino because I’m so proud of her
---Moments where I’ve laughed so hard with new friends that I’ve almost peed
---Creating a post-it face on a forgotten meditation cushion of a former staff member, and then sending the photo shoot of the mediation cushion in the play gym, at meetings, on the swingset to the staff member :).
---My lemon tree
---Tea with honey
---Hot showers and my hot water bottle (so cozy at night!)
---A free hair dryer I got and a bunch of gluten free things
---People who’ve said “thank you” to me (I get asked for stuff all the time at work and it’s so nice when people remember to say thank you)
---Morning walks to work with my neighbor/friend/coworker
---Surprise notes of encouragement/earrings from this neighbor/friend/coworker (she’s the best!)
---A free dinner Tuesday night with visitors (and I could eat EVERYTHING even the dessert!)
---Free rides up the monster hill to school
---Drawing a portrait of a friend and another friend’s boyfriend making a beautiful wooden frame
---Sunny days
---The many dogs who walk up to campus and spend the day at school running around and just plain l-i-v-i-n’. We should all be so lucky to live life with that enthusiasm.
I hope everyone has a day with many reminders to be grateful.
"Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom." - Marcel Proust
Un abrazo,
W
