Five Months into a 6-week Trip

Sometimes I think it was all a mistake.  I did this crazy thing about coming to Uganda, to pick up children whose existence I wasn't even sure about, and to stay for an indeterminate amount of time, and then I have stayed and stayed and stayed.  Maybe I should have done it like everybody else, and gone back home and waited in the middle.

I am so tired.  I am so frustrated.  This is so hard.  My parents have left, and I am back to the familiar emptiness, except now I can understand more clearly why it's empty.  It's not the hard-ness from the outside; the things I have to DO.  It's the hardness from the inside; it's being who I AM.  

There is nothing to be me here.  There is no project to work on, there are no friends to empathize with, there is nothing to learn about, there is nothing to accomplish.  Of course, that's not quite true -- there's plenty to do and plenty to learn, but the way this city and this society is set up, it's really hard to get to in the between-times of dealing with three children and their schedules.  I feel trapped in the house, partly because of the children's schedules, but just as much because there's nowhere in particular to go TO.  

Deep and meaningful interactions with other human beings takes up so much mental and spiritual energy, and leaves such a blank when it's not there!   And interacting with people in another culture, when you are trying to figure out their expectations and being careful to not say things a certain way, takes so much mental energy in a completely different way.  I am very grateful for the relationships I am forming with people here -- my housekeeper, our priest, the children's teachers, and others -- and I think these interactions are meaningful and I am really learning about this culture.  But there is no one I can sit down and go "whoof, what a day!" and we connect into a conversation.  To me at least, this isn't about the depth of the relationship; I can have nice, relaxing conversations like that with other women in Mom's Club or with another parent in the pick-up line at school.  It's about having something in common, about being able to make assumptions about that person and jump into our commonalities. Many times, those can become cathartic and meaningful conversations, just around sharing one important thing.

And actual friends!  Oh my goodness, it's so hard to go this long without my friends around!  I wish I could ask for and accept favors, because I knew that it was part of the give-and-take of a long-term relationship.  I wish I could have a conversation about something kind of particular or esoteric.  How I miss my weekly Parents Of Young Children Bible Study, when we sometimes have a serious religious conversation and sometimes we just vent about the things that have happened during the week.  How I miss our "playdates" with my best local friend, while we both basically talk simultaneously non-stop for hours until we realize our husbands have gotten home and we need to serve dinner.  And my best oldest-but-faraway friend came and stayed at my house on her way up the coast and I wasn't even there!  Being away for a few weeks wasn't bad.  It's five full months, now.  That's a long time.

And nothing to do!  No garden, no dogs, no nature to go walking in, no camping trips to plan.  There's not even room in the house to set up a craft project where I could keep it away from the kids.  No library to go and study things.  No use decorating or fixing up the house I won't be staying in long, and someone else cleans it and trims the flowers in the yard.  No bread to bake, not enough ingredients or supplies for interesting cooking projects.  No piano to play or music to study.  No inspiration to start on something and figure out how to make it work!  I'm the kind of person who always has six different things going at once, and I always feel like I'm behind on everything and it's not that big a deal anyways.  I am not a high-energy super-project person, but I do a little bit of this and a little bit of that and then start working on something and lose track of the time and go into way more detail than I ever meant to, and then I daydream about it for the next week.  And getting those things done, and thinking about getting them done, means so much to who I am, and being excited to get going in the morning.

You've noticed that I'm doing all this complaining, and it's not even about the kids.  What about the kids?  They are driving me crazy.  Absolutely bonkers.  I am so frustrated with them.  But that's the worst part of all!  I think I've realized it's not about the kids, it's about me.  I'm so emotionally worn down, I just want to withdraw into myself and I resent them for needing so much energy that I don't have.

I LOVE being a mom.  I have looked forward to having three kids for years.  I love energy and intensity and creativity and curiousity, which they are chock-full of.  But I don't even have enough of ME left over to enjoy them.

Which is why I'm starting to wonder if this was the wrong choice, to start our relationship off when I'm so exhausted by everything else.  I wonder if I'm building up resentment and frustration with Hibiscus that is defining our relationship, when that resentment and frustration is mostly coming from where I am in life right now.  And then she talk-talk-talks so loudly, and falls over and hurts herself AGAIN doing the same thing I told her not to over and over, and makes a giant mess, and picks a fight with her brother, and talk-talk-talks some more, and picks all the flowers off a bush....  It's not really that evil, I can recognize that!  But I'm so sick of it, and I don't want to be sick of her.  And by the time I've dealt with all that, I'm getting sick of the other kids, too.

I want to enjoy the family I've worked so hard to bring together.  I want to be the mother that each of them need, and that I know is inside me.  I know she's there; I know myself, and I'm getting to know all my children, and I know how well we can fit together.

But I've lost that mother.  I've lost myself.