08/16/14 - moving on

Dear boys,                                                                                                          08/16/14

                I finished the Niger series. And I decided not to stop writing. There are so many moments I want to honor now instead of grieving them later.

                So now I live in Hershey, PA. Remember the day before I left Niger, when I decided waking up and seeing Ruthanna asleep on the other side of the mosquito net was everything I wanted in the world? I spent four months trying to figure out how to start making my decisions in light of wakeup moments and not daydreams. One day during a random conversation, my friend Karen – who is awesome and an MK and astronomically cool – asked me, “If you only had a month left to live, what would you want to spend it on?”

                I already answered part of this question for myself two years ago when I had a needlestick injury at work. While I waited three panicky hours for the bloodwork to come back, I thought through my current priorities. If the bloodwork came back positive for HIV or Hep B, and the prophylactic treatment didn’t work, and I contracted one or both and – make it the easier scenario – died soon after, what would I feel was incomplete about my life? I thought of all the things I invested in or planned to invest in, and you know what I would miss? It wasn’t completing nurse practitioner school, or spending a few years volunteering with Doctors Without Borders, or hiking the Andes mountains and visiting Macchu Pichu, or decorating a house beautifully and being really hospitable. I was sorry I never fell in love, never adopted a child, didn’t spend more time with people I love, never wrote a book. Funny that the things I was trying to do or learn to do were not the things I knew I would wish I had done when I faced death.

So when Karen asked me what I would do with only one more month to live, I already had an answer.  If I had a month left to live, I wouldn’t have time to fall in love or adopt a child and probably not even write a book, unless it was about the experience of dying – which actually would be a book I’d really like to write. That narrowed it down to spending more time with people I love. 

I really loved life in Virginia. I loved my roommates and friends, my house, my coworkers, the population diversity, the easy access to anything I could possibly want, the big highways with enough lanes for me to pass the slower drivers, having DC an hour east and fabulous hiking an hour west, the many educational opportunities. I miss them still, especially Esther, who is of course doing just fine without me. This week she texted me a picture of her legs, which she happily says she hasn’t shaved in 2 weeks now that I’m not there shaving mine fanatically and reminding her. I laughed even though I wanted to cry. Who would have thought I’d miss her scratchy Bigfoot legs?

When Karen asked me how I would spend the last month of my life, you came to mind right away. But I’ve given you my heart all my life. I’d want to tell you goodbye, but I wouldn’t feel we were missing anything. Same thing goes for most of my friends and for Mom and Dad. I don’t have a man in my life so that takes care of that. What I would feel was missing was the relationships I’ve never had with Ruthanna and Sarah.

                In my mind I saw Ruthanna asleep on the other side of the mosquito net when I answered Karen.  “I’d move home and spend some more time with my little sisters and wake up some mornings next to them.”

                So a few months later I did move.

                I’m going to keep writing to you guys, but I’m going to include the girls too. From now on it’s “dear kiddos.” Older sibling perks. :)

                And I’ll move again – probably never stop – every time I find a new thing I whole-heartedly want to spend the last month of my life on. I'm also ready to ask the questions I've avoided because I was afraid of the answers. I'm ready to exchange security for sincerity. I'm ready to not meet the expectations or "be myself" on someone else's terms or interpret values and faith through a lens of familiarity. I'm ready to live in the middle of the conflicts and inner division instead of on the avoidant outskirts trying to rephrase the naked truth in orthodox words and concepts. Haven’t we learned by now the chilling truth… that every day is a last day? Death isn't out there waiting. Death is how full or empty we lived today.

              And I also got my nose pierced. Immediately after the piercing I was terrified, as you can see.

             At first I was all like, what if someday I don't like it? What if I get judged for it? But I did it anyway and my friend Michael said it takes a few weeks to get used to a new piercing. So I gave it time and I really like it now. I'm itching for the four month healing phase to be up so I can get some cool jewelry for it.

                Tab