Ahem
(taps microphone softly)
(glances around, considers running away)
It's been nearly two weeks since I've posted, I think a one plus two record. I may have been serious when I said I forgot how to write.
I'm back in the jungle. We are back and not only back but my baby, my sweet, delicious, tiny girl child started kindergarten today. I quite tearily dropped her off and left her and picked her up afterwards, my amazing most beautiful kick ass kid. She did it, she did it with only a few tears, sweating in the heat, she came out smiling and even complaining that there wasn't very much learning going on around that place which I've decided to chalk up to first day settling in and not as an omen of things to come. She even wants to go back tomorrow. Score one for jungle school.
I've been a whirlwind of planes and work and heat, my project isn't winding down so I am due back next month, a blessing and a curse, a paycheck and a long distance road. I am really walking the line now, unsure of where I am supposed to be and even more quietly, where I want to be, unsure of a lot and confident in the rest. Somehow this is sort of what we planned and yet somehow when it's actually happening it feels a million times strange and a bit teary, I get a bit of a rush and I am in some ways proud of myself. I already miss my child and am not sure what kind of mother this leaving again makes me.
We talked about it quite a bit me and her, debating whether working every day all day and being apart in that way is better than being together constantly for six months and having two weeks apart. She's decided the latter is better except for the part when I'm gone and I completely agree. The career part of me feels so thankful, I've somehow landed a gig that suits me perfectly, working with non profit types instead of inside of them, helping things work themselves out. Being in the States meant a few other things, besides gaining a few pounds I reconnected with old friends, several of whom took me in and for one fantastic weekend, M and I both. We couch surfed and ate too much and drank in the luxury of being around people we love and who love us and we laughed and hugged and maybe cried once or twice.
And now we are back and feel fortunate again to be met with hugs and squeals and catching up with our new friends, the ones we've come to love here who are now part of us too. Down here they chide me for going up north to the unreal world and nod with understanding because they know why I must. The mothers here promise to help J and M any way they can because they know and we all know there is nothing like having a mother in the home and for that I am happy too. The village circles it's wagons once more. And I spin right round baby right round.