Battered and Scattered

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

I don’t know if it is the trauma of having our car and belongings stolen, jet lag, culture shock in coming back to America, or just the accumulated effect of a difficult six months, but I feel battered. Add to that the constant scattered feeling that accompanies having your stuff taken. Sad to say that when my computer was stolen, so was half my brain. Or maybe even three-quarters.

Every day there is a gift, sometimes even more than one, if I can recognize it as such.

Strawberries and blueberries for breakfast every morning. Waking up remembering that Carmen had a copy of my personal recipe book that was on my computer. Finding the perfect purse at Ten Thousand Villages. Experiencing a creative and informal worship service. Laughing more in a two hour lunch with friends after church than I have in the last year. Niko going through his drawers and finding hand-me-down clothes for our boys. Walking with Annika around the Rose Bowl and talking. Taking a luxurious shower and thinking for a moment that there is a cockroach in there with me only to realize it is a screw. Having Ty join us at the Natural History Museum and California Science Center.

But underneath it all I feel weary. And teary. Wow. Weary and teary. Battered and scattered. Not pleasant but satisfying in a literary sort of way.

Before we left Kitwe, Peter and I commented to each other that this second year in Zambia we can dub our “Lost” year. We began watching the TV show “Lost” thanks to a pirated copy of the Season 1 we bought at the market for $2. So this year is associated with that, but on a deeper level, there have been other losses. We have lost many good friends, spiritual sustenance, an enchantment with our host country, and our sense of humor. Add to that a loss of security due to two successful break-ins and two aborted robberies. Not to mention a lot of money that has gone to support a few desperate Zambians, though not the ones we had hoped to help financially.

And now we can add another big loss to the tally. In being relieved of our car and luggage and computer, I lost all my research and notes related to the trauma workshops that I had been conducting. I have hard copies of some of it back in Kitwe which is good but it will take a lot of work to get back to where I was. Internet is ridiculously fast here so I need to do research on a lot of areas that I may teach on in the future. But motivation is low. There is so much reconstruction work with documents that were lost and my mind is swirling with what is now gone but I just can’t make myself work on it. Overwhelming.

I’m really sad about the missed opportunity to travel to Prague to see friends and visit our old stomping grounds. It seemed to be now or never as the friends we have there may not be there much longer and the seminary where we lived is going through major changes making this the last time we could experience IBTS somewhat like it was when we lived there. It was going to be so perfect as it would have broken up our trip, we could have enjoyed it with no jetlag, and we only had to pay for the airfare from Germany to Prague since MCC paid for the rest of our home leave tickets. But the trip didn’t happen and the tickets were non-refundable so we paid a lot of money for the fun of planning the trip and dreaming of time with friends. I’m still grieving that loss.

And I feel robbed of what I was longing for with this home leave, to just relax and reconnect. I was already arriving with a deficit but now seem to have dipped even lower. Now there is even more shopping, more decisions, more research, more recovery that needs to happen. We have allowed Mom and Dad the privilege of spending lots of time with their grandkids whom they haven’t seen for a year while we make yet another trip to a store for this or that. It’s been nearly a week since we arrived and we haven’t even made it to a playground yet. Brendan and Jason have been troopers but they need some attention too, especially since they don’t have any playmates here due to friends who are on vacation at the moment and many other friends who have moved from the area in the last few years.

I’m trying to remind myself that it is still early and there will be plenty of time for everything yet, but I also know that time passes quickly. I don’t want our time to be lost, in addition to everything else.

And as if all that wasn’t enough, I just returned from my OB/GYN appointment and instead of hearing all is well, the doctor discovers that I have an abnormal cervix. She was freaking out a little bit and “very concerned” which is kind of just the way she is but still disconcerting. Next week I have to see another doctor who will take a biopsy and figure out what is going on. If you haven’t already, you better put me on your prayer list permanently. We are off to Fresno for a few days for the sole purpose of helping Kevin and Rhonda work on their new house and help them pack for their move. A bit of physical labor and doing something for someone else may be just what the doctor ordered, or should have ordered if she wasn’t too busy freaking out.