This countdown does not lead to blast-off or even to zero. This is the kind of countdown that leads, essentially, to another countdown. The business of business before the business of waiting. But I have discovered no need for plan B. And this has led to the first real communication in my house in several months. Because my first thoughts were that I can't really go without him. Of course, I can and I would go. I will go. But it will be easier to carry the idea of him with me than to think we are going off to become lost in the vast regions of Congo with nothing to carry us home again.
So this begins the preparation period. I have many tasks to turn my attention to here and many things to try and put in order. Opening one door has led to the possibility of others. We talk of moving south, into the sunshine. I would like to get him set up in a functional way, one that doesn't really require me to support. It seems a bit crazy to think we could continue a marriage this way, with me jetting off to Africa with our 2 youngest and him moving south with his 2.
Honestly, I'm not sure we can. But I still feel more comfortable setting out on a journey having a connection behind. I've always been able to compare myself to a leaf floating downstream, not really connected to any one port but passing them all by, maybe even with a little resistance but finding no root to reach out and grab onto. I've always had some fear of drifting off, never to be seen again...but by who? If you have no family and such a small circle of friends that the 's' is really just a formality, then can you really disappear? Did you ever really exist in the first place?
Allah Akbar. Its the realization of a dream. Alhamdu lil lahi. I guess time will tell what kind of a dream. But I have been filled with gratitude and hope.
And I have some internal work to do, I'm sure. Some terms to come with, as she spoke of 'an idyllic garden' and 'everybody needs help, really, I've come to see it as our duty to hire them.." Bordering on the edge of the elite for me. A privileged lifestyle, it sounds, in the midst of chaos and need. I have enough trouble coping with the atrocities of Africa a million miles away. I'm not sure I'll fare much better a mere hundred away. I can be too sensitive, overcome with sympathy for things I cannot change, taking on pain that does not really belong to me.
Which is why I found it all too ironic when she spoke of the 5 million dying from starvation and disease as "it will affect your daily life as much there as it does here, which is to say, not all that much."
Unless you're me and this is the kind of stuff that keeps you up at night, every night.
But she thought I was perfect for Congo, and I thought, "Finally, someone who can really see me. "
