beginnings

i am home now. really home.  home with my people, my little family, some of my friends.  home with the pebbly dusty roads, in a place where my face sticks out. it's so good to be back.

now it's the end of the dry season.   things are crisp and the leaves are less dense and some are crunching on the ground. there is wind and the sounds of dry thing moving together. the air is cooler than i remember, things are browner.  it's so beautiful, it looks like fall, one of the few times when the season here outside, matches my internal season. end of august, start of september- that time of change and newness and beginning.

and that is where we are. we are beginning again. 

i flew in the night of the two year anniversary of our landing. i remember all those bags and the tired but excited kids and wondering somewhere inside myself, what we had done.  but now, i was returning. i was alone.  i was in the 'residents' line, not the 'alien/visitors' line.  now i was home.

but i came home to people who had already been home.  to three kids still on summer break, one at a new school, and one husband tired of single parenting. but i was ready.....well, except for zoe.

zoe and i have had a challenging few months.  i think it's the parenting a teenage daughter thing, complicated by years of our challenging life with her and the fatigue that brings.  but the summer in america was pretty good.  she was able to reconnect (and pretty well) with her old friends.  she was doing sleepovers and playdates and enjoying being able to eat gluten-free food at most restaurants in  the US.  she was happy, but it's a lot.  it's a lot to process. going back to what was always 'home' after two years away is hard.  and so is leaving it again, to go back across the ocean, back to where your face sticks out, and at a new school. 

transitions are tough on all of us, but especially tough on zoe, especially tough when processing the new stuff takes so much more work.  when learning to filter out the new sounds is harder, when learning your way to the cafeteria is harder, when making new friends is harder, and learning what their tones of voices mean is harder, and so is trying to know what their faces are saying when there are no words.  i shouldn't ever blame her for these things.  i have no idea how taxing her life is.

she has been at the new school for just over a week.  today was my first day to drive, and my first day to meet her teachers and her one-one learning aide (a God-send we found via online social networking).  i have to admit, i was scared.  i was scared of all of it, for her, for me, for them.  i was afraid that things would be falling apart- that she'd come undone- that her teachers would be overwhelmed by her- that i would have to sit with a new reality of messy, or disaster, or re-inventing the plan...again.

but it wasn't that. it wasn't any of those things.  it wasn't dramatic in either direction- just like most of real life is, it just was. she was calm and showed me around and introduced me to people.  she lost her locker key and couldn't remember what subject came first and interrupted a few times, but she was happy and people were really nice to her, the kids and the teachers. 

no one seemed overwhelmed.  no one seemed undone. and after meeting her lovely assistant/ helper, i felt great.  i felt support and commitment and encouragement.  i felt she had a team and a place, and me too. it reminded me again of Gods goodness and grace, and my seemingly constant short-term memory loss about this- my grappling and worrying and frantic attempts to manage my own fears and anxieties- my need to buckle down and prepare for the worst instead of trusting in the provision.

i am always beginning.  beginning so often, to see again what i already know.  the grace is that it's okay.  it's okay to forget and start again. it's okay to be blown away by the goodness of God.  it's okay to be reminded. it's okay to begin again.