August 3, 2011

August 3, 2011

                I know again that my timings are going to be off, because I was backtracking for so long and now am almost going to skip a week completely.  However, I am doing that for me.

           Focusing my energies on the project and the center is what is now best for me.  Thankfully, I will soon be settled enough to do that.  It has only taken three weeks.

                Realizing that I wasn’t writing because I wasn’t happy was also a new concept for me.  I was talking with Miranda, and we both mentioned that we haven’t gone into the details about everything with our families or friends.  Wes has been the only person on my home front that is privy to all the juicy details, but I think I even refrained from telling him everything.  I simply didn’t want him and everyone else to worry.  Even though, I myself WAS worried.

                Within the week, I had a crick in my neck that didn’t go away for two days, my first nose bleed since childhood, and now I am sick with a GI upset once again – much worse than the first one, too (I even took antibiotics today.).  I have always known that I take my deep worries out on my body, but I didn’t even know how immensely hard this has been on me (guess my body did).  I think you go into “everything will be alright and I am halfway around the world from home so there isn’t a lot I can do about it anyway so I will just sit tight and wait for the moment it all works out” mode.  And, please read that statement again faster so you start getting your mind to where mine was at that moment.

                Now, please read it a third time even faster….and that might be closing in on how my mind was racing.  I don’t think I was allowing it to slow down, because if I did, reality would set in.  I just had to keep going. 

I knew this was going to be difficult.  I knew I would cry.  I knew I would be confused.  I knew I would have questions.  I knew my life would be upside down.  I knew my views and beliefs would change.  I knew I would get sick.  I knew I would experience new things.  I knew I would learn.  I knew I would have good days.  I knew I would have bad days.  I knew I would have to be outside of every comfort zone I have ever known.  I knew I would miss everyone and home like mad. 

I did not know I would consider giving up. 

            That slapped me.  I was so stunned the thought even crossed my mind that I had moments afterward where I did not move.  If you have spent time with me at all, you would probably be keenly aware that quitting is not really a part of who I am.  Now, I will say I did quit golf and band when I was in high school, but really?  Who wants a player with a 23 on the first hole or a player who is asked not to blow into the instrument (I was asked to just finger the keys and pretend to play.)?  That is not truly quitting but rather accepting my short comings.  However, I can’t remember a time other than perhaps those two incidents where I gave up.

                I have always been someone who needed to succeed for no other reason than I don’t know how to be a person who doesn’t try wholeheartedly.  I may fail miserably in the process, or it may turn out completely wrong; but, I do it, and I do it the best way I know how.  That to me is succeeding, because I am trying in the first place and doing so with the best intentions in the second.  Either way it goes, I will learn a valuable lesson and walk away a better person. 

                So, staring desertion in the face was like looking through a magnifying glass.  Everything was distorted and overwhelmingly large; and, seeing something that closely is borderline grotesque – and perhaps fearful, too.   I walked away.   I walked away from that looking glass and realized I came to Uganda for some purpose.  I may not know what it is right now (as uncertainty and doubt seem to be running themes in this experience), but there is a reason I am here.  I will start tomorrow with a new outlook, one where I will be focused and certain of my uncertain path here.  I can’t be afraid, and I can’t think I will have all the answers.  I won’t.  I will just have to accept this journey and everything – both good and bad – that it will bring.  And, I can do so in the manner of me; that I know.