What is it about 3 ams that draw out the deepest of thoughts; the fondest of memories; the most inapprehensible of ideas? What is it about illness, physical infirmity, that causes the mind to write fervently? I must have completed both the maid of honour and best man speech on my way to Bible study this evening. Caught. In the rain that turned into hail down Brookland's Avenue when I had forgotten my umbrella twenty minutes before, and stuck on a road which held no shelter on either end. Despite being cold and sick, I could not help but laugh. Cars drove by. There was a sweet irony to the situtation: 'betwixt two places' Ms Therza had observed in us both at tea the Monday before I left for home.
I chose legs over car this evening because I had been bedridden since Tuesday, when I arrived back into Cambridge. The flight was painful. I missed my bus. I got sick several times. And I barely made it to the second class of Spanish. Muy enferma.
Lying in bed most days has caused me to reflect on my visit home. For the most part, June seems like a blur; I can hardly believe that it will soon be over. If I think hard enough, I can vaguely piece together what I had felt like before boarding that plane at Heathrow that Wednesday 30 May at 1:00 o'clock. The day before I had met a friend in London for lunch - something we try to do about once a month - and feeling as if the whole world lay before me. I had felt so alive in that week; everything since February had led me to such a moment: where I felt so conscious of every part of my being - physically, spiritually, emotionally, intellectually. It was an awareness that made me so happy, the feeling that if I jumped I would land on both feet.
Home was wonderful in two specific ways: my family and my best friends (and my best friend's fiance). The time I got to spend with them was more than rewarding and I do not regret a moment of it. Sometimes physical proximity can do for a close friendship/relationship what nothing else can. Mere presence. There. A touch, a hug in the midst of outbursts or just a thought. What touched me most was the knowing look my best friend gave me one afternoon on my basement couch. Oprah was in the background going on about some new gastronomical discovery. My best friend turned her head towards mine: 'It must be hard to be taken out of your life over there. You have a life over there, and it's hard to fit that into here. What you're feeling is understandable'. Her comment felt like validation.
I won't lie when I say that I feel as if being home for such a long stretch disorientated me a bit. It's not about 'going home' itself; it's the combination of 'going home' for a long period and being unable to figure out how to fit work, play, and aspects of myself from here into such a different environment. I am not an adaptable creature by any standard. I dislike all travel save the use of my legs, where my feet can feel the ground beneathe them and I can breath air that doesn't seem to run out. I feel that work evades me. Being sick has been a limiting factor in so many ways, but it has also been, ironically, the vehicle for reflection. I know that God has a hand in all things, and I have to trust that I have not lost days but have gained perspectives.
It's approaching 4:30 am and I know I should force myself to sleep. Otherwise I will have to struggle to fight the jet-lag that will hit this morning/afternoon. There are no complaints and no regrets. Just thoughts that needed to be written for the sake of reflection. Sometimes the mental machinery needs emptying before it can let itself rest. I want to sleep.
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