So much has happened in this year. My engagement ended shortly after the six-months-of-being-home blog post. Although it has not been an easy road and grief is a process that is far from over, I can honestly say that I have grown stronger for it and learned a lot. I am choosing to focus on the positive things I have gained and it helps a lot.
During my time in Bolivia I learned that my mother had been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, a condition considered by NIMH to be a serious mental illness. It was a devastating piece of information at the time and yet freeing. Finally I had a concrete explanation for the conflicting experiences, both hurtful and happy, that marked my early childhood through young adulthood. In this year of being home again I have finally begun to explore what being an adult child of a borderline mother means and to process her past and present behavior in order to heal. Most recently she moved, refusing to tell me where, with my ten-year old brother. It took me months to find out that she moved to a city two hours away.
I first began to seriously question my faith in Bolivia. I am no longer sure of what I believe. I am okay with that. I know I am not the first to be unsure of whether or not there is a God after living in the orphanage, and I suspect I will not be the last. I know there were times in Bolivia where I could tell that someone or something was looking out for me, where what I needed was provided when I needed it. Like when I only had a few dollars to my name, and the little girl in the market gave me a discount on the bread I needed to feed me for a few days. Or the kind nurse who sat and talked with me in such a comforting way when I had an allergic reaction to some medication. Watching Deimar get adopted and transform in such a remarkable way when I was so worried he would get sent to some overpopulated, understaffed baby-factory-type orphanage. Managing to secure a job back home despite numerous and unpredictable technological obstacles: cut cables, random power outtages, the like. Since returning home I've had the privilege of working at a Jewish Community Center and it is the Jewish understanding of "miracle" I have adopted as my own: when we needed it, it was there. Small miracles, all of these. But miracles they are nonetheless, and for them I am grateful. For now, to acknowledge and believe in these is enough for me.
I am not sure where exactly this new year is taking me. Deep down I have an inkling that my days of international projects are far from over. For now I feel like it is time to put down roots here. I am home. I belong here. The needs in Bolivia are perhaps more elemental and glaring then the needs I experience here, but that doesn't mean that I am not needed here. My afterschool and camp children are not "my babies" in the same way that the Bolivian orphans were, but I am still a crucial part of their lives. They may have mommies or daddies to take care of them, but they still need me to be a motherly, sisterly figure, tying their shoes or admiring their latest artistic endeavors, empowering them to become more fully the wonderful little people they already are.
In this year post-Bolivia I have had the chance to reconnect with my father, an opportunity I never really expected to have. Initially I was motivated to contact him when I first became engaged. It seemed like an appropriate excuse to contact him. Ever on the forefront of my mind was my responsibility to the family Joe and I were about to create; I needed to make peace with my own past before I had children of my own. Though we broke up shortly after seeing my dad for the first time in nine years, my relationship with my dad has been slowly growing over the last six months. I have been able to meet relatives I hadn't seen since I was two; my grandmother and step-grandpa, my aunt and uncle and cousins. I look forward to getting reacquainted with this side of the family I never knew and to finding my place within it.
This year of being home has not been easy. It has had its ups and downs. It has been full of unexpected things, both happy and hard. But it's been a good year overall. I am going back to school this fall, ready to finish up an individualized-studies bachelor's degree in Spanish, elementary education and women's studies. I am starting my second year with the JCC afterschool program and beginning an internship with an Ypsilanti midwifery practice. I have finally been able to pursue my interests in urban farming and the local food movement and am learning to bellydance. I am also the happy owner/mother of three very mischevious kitties. Life is good.
It's good to be home.
