Another Sunday in May

For seventeen years, Mother’s Day has been a day for someone else. A day for people with mothers, a day for mothers. And then there it was, mine for the taking, complete with brunch and flowers and cards and Matt and my beautiful little girl. And I felt… sad.

Growing up, Mother’s Day was more or less just a Sunday with dessert. It was usually one of the first days that it was warm enough to grill, so we would invite my grandmothers over for a barbecue. They would get cards and big baskets of hanging flowers and my mom would get something nice from her mother (perfume, a pretty nightgown, a nice sweater) and something strange or passive aggressive from my dad’s (sponges, a book on how to be a good mother, salt and pepper shakers). I enjoyed the day because I was oblivious to the tension between my mom and her mother-in-law, because I loved my grandmothers in a totally unencumbered way, and because there was dessert.

Fast forward to Mother’s Day, 1991. I was 12 and Andy was coming home from college to have dinner with us, making me giddy with excitement about the chance to see him. He walked in the door with a huge bouquet of flowers, which he handed to my mom and then burst into tears. This naturally scared the crap out of me, because I’d never seen Andy cry, not even when he was stung by a swarm of bees in our back yard.

That was the Mother’s Day that I learned that my mom had breast cancer. I took it like a champ because they made it seem like some people get colds, some people get ear infections, and other people get cancer. Suspicious of Andy’s tears, I pressed them on whether mom would be better by my Bat Mitzvah, and I was assured that of course she would.

And then Mother’s Day, 1994. The first Mother’s Day after my mom died. I had just lost my mom, I was 15, I weighed approximately 93 pounds sopping wet, and so I did the most logical, teenage thing I could do: I hated. I hated Hallmark, candy, and barbecues, I hated my friends with mothers, and I hated mothers. Except that I was only 15, so I cried myself to sleep that night and spent the next morning cutting my classes, smoking cigarettes on the black top, and feeling sullen and sad.

I mostly grew out of the hate, attending the breast cancer walk in Philadelphia and later in Pittsburgh, even though getting up to volunteer for a walk at 7:30am as a college student was a sort of masochistic torture. When I got married I abdicated responsibility for Mother’s Day, even as I reminded Matt that hey, you have to call your mom. Once, in law school, I sent “The Secret Life of Bees,” a book that’s essentially about the mothers that aren’t related to us, to a few of the women who mothered me through those hate years. And when Matt’s brother got married, my sister-in-law took over Mother’s Day duties, sending an email a few days before with, “I was thinking flowers for Char” or “how about an Amazon gift card this year?” and I felt so grateful for Amanda’s ability to just walk over, look at my pain and say, “I’ll pick that up for you honey, don’t you worry your pretty little head about it.” I handed it over willingly, every time.

And then there was last year, the mother of all Mother’s Days, when I didn’t have a mother, I had just had a miscarriage, and I wasn’t yet pregnant. I don’t need to dwell on it much more than this: it was awful, hate turned into resentment.

I don’t know what I expected this year. I half-expected to “take back the day,” to feel like this day that has held so much emotion for me over the years would once again be simple, or even feel like any other day. But Hallmark is pervasive, and so are my emotions. So I didn’t get to have a personal mommy-ist triumph, nor did it feel like just another day in the life of our 64-day-old daughter.

Instead, I just missed my mother. A lot. I missed her more than I missed her the day that Mollie was born. I missed her more than when Martha was here, pinch-hitting on the mother AND mother-in-law roles. I missed her more than I do when I’m sitting quietly in Mollie’s room with Julie, more than I do in those moments when Mollie looks at me with her intense stare, more than when I’m reading her “Where the Wild Things Are” or when we walk around the Chestnut Hill Reservoir. I didn’t want the barbecue or the hanging pots of flowers, and I certainly didn’t want the awkward family drama, but I wanted the chance to have a conversation with my mother, to see her on a Sunday, maybe share some dessert.

I spent so many years hating the day, resenting what everyone else got to celebrate, that over time the day turned into both more and less than it was meant to be.

Mollie is asleep on me as I’m writing this, sucking on her pacifier every few seconds to comfort herself. She literally has everything she needs within inches and she is calm, comforted. I hope that I am there on her first Mother’s Day, to tell her how amazing it is to see her all grown up and mothering. I hope that after her years of hating and resentment over whatever or whomever she needs to hate and resent, that I can be there for her, that we can have a conversation and some dessert.

I am learning that it is the little things that add up to a Mother’s Day, the small moments and Sundays that make up part of a year, part of the role. Yet I don’t want to miss a single one, and the saddest thing of all is that if I had to hazard a guess, my mother would have said the very same thing.

So for now, this will have to do: wherever you are, Happy Mother’s Day. You are with me in the quiet moments and in the loud ones, and so you never really miss a thing. I will eat dessert for both of us.

Photos from Trip to Boston

Here are a bunch of pics from last summer's trip to Boston.

Things that Make Me Saner

Immediately after I wrote that post about being at that bad place with the bar exam, a few things happened. First, things got worse. (That's always the way, isn't it?) I had a crying breakdown to Julie over gmail chat, wherein I sat typing in all of the reasons that I was such a mess. In case you're curious, typing down all of the reasons that you're feeling batshit insane isn't necessarily the best way to make yourself less so. You're just confronted with your insanity in black and white, and by your own hand, and you feel more absurd and yet strangely less able to do anything about it. But Julie calmed me down by reminding me that it's just a day, and that my only goal was to get through the day before I could move on to worrying about the next day, or the intervening days between then and test day. And then I felt better because she was being so reasonable and calm and normal.

I felt better right up until later that day when some perv walked into the library and started touching himself in plain sight of me. I shit you not. There are actually people who think that kind of behavior is okay, people who walk into public libraries, libraries full of sweet little children, and touch themselves because they are perverted sick bastards. And that was about the time I remembered why I'm doing what I'm doing, that in the end, law is a way to keep pervs like that guy off of the street, out of your library, and away from your kids. Dude, law can help and so can I!

And then I had another breakdown. But then, THEN I got a phone call from one friend and an email from another, both of whom have been here before, both of whom have taken this test, who know how positively soul-destroying it can be. It helps that both of these women are the kind of women whose advice and counsel I respect and seek out. And even though I listened to their words and thought, "but they don't know how little I know about Commercial Paper," I started to see that there was some light at the end of the tunnel. And I actually started to remember what I feel like when I'm not taking the bar exam. Except, of course, that we ate pie for dinner last night. That's still not normal.

Every day this week I've been studying in the Lexington Library, right down the street from where Matt works. It gets me up and out of the house in the morning, plus it keeps me on Matt's schedule, which is good, because if I was left to my own devices I'd study between the hours of midnight and noon, instead of the other way around. Because we're in such close proximity, I've had the chance to meet Matt for lunch. Monday was a shared salami sub, Tuesday we tried the Indian restaurant in Lexington, Wednesday we had caprese salad and tuna fish, Thursday we went to the Japanese/Chinese restaurant (don't ask), and today we're meeting for chicken sandwiches. Every single meal has been tailored to my bizarre and unreasonable cravings, cravings that occasionally (read: usually) change in between the time that I voice them and the time I'm eating, so that I'll get to a restaurant and stare at a menu for 10 or 12 minutes, wondering what on earth I'll do if I order the sushi box when in the end I really want chicken and broccoli, oh the choices are so overwhelming! It's tough, I know. But lunch with Matt is the absolute highlight of my day, the very best and most indulgent moment that I allow myself at this point in the process. We talk about anything but the bar exam, and we spend a few minutes lamenting the fact that we'll have to give up our midday lunch dates when the exam is over and I'm (presumably, hopefully, please oh please!) working.

The past two nights I've come home to care packages. These care packages are full to the brim with items that will surely rot my teeth, but that also make me extremely thankful that I have friends and family who love me enough to help me rot my teeth. You know you're doing well when your peeps basically send you a message that says, "of COURSE you're going to pass the bar exam. And when all of your teeth fall out, we'll STILL think you're a fantastic lawyer and a pretty great friend/sister-in-law. Although, we will then reserve the right to encourage you to find a dentist. But we'll do it gently, and with love." From the very bottom of my toothless grin, I love you guys. Thanks for thinking of me.

So it's just four wee little days before the exam and even though I had a mental breakdown in the car today (nothing to do with the test, no, this one was all about why I didn't just become a saxophone teacher, nevermind the fact that I've never even held a saxophone in my life. Sure, Lizzi, it had NOTHING to do with the exam.), I'm feeling mostly alright. I mean, I'm surrounded by a mountain of candy, I've got lunch to look forward to, and there are pervs in my library. I can feel it already: it's going to be an exciting four days! But seriously this time, I'm doing alright. I mean, it IS going to be an exciting four days, but after these four days and then those excruciating two days of the exam, it will all be over. And then my biggest concern will be the future of my dental hygiene.

And THERE It Is

Remember last week when I was feeling all calm and confident? And I promised to keep you posted about my mental state in the coming days? Well, here it is folks, the much-anticipated mental status report wherein I confidently assure you that I am once again totally and completely batshit insane over this test.

It happened sometime between Friday afternoon and Sunday morning, though I suspect that Matt would report that it’s been happening slowly but surely since I started studying in June. But Friday afternoon at about 4:45pm, a kind woman announced over the library’s loudspeaker system that the library would be closing in 15 minutes. I shit you not, tears welled up in my eyes as I felt the weight of the stress of having to move to a different locale settle somewhere between my shoulders and my brain. And then Saturday afternoon, as it became increasingly apparent that I can’t, in fact, read in a moving car (um, perhaps the fact that I’ve been getting carsick since I was a child should have given this away, but no, I tried anyway), I actually felt grateful for the 90 minutes spent in the waiting room of a Subaru dealership, where Julie’s car had been towed and was getting a new alternator and several new belts. Sitting in that air-conditioned waiting room meant I got to read an extra 10 pages of Civil Procedure.

And Sunday, oh Sunday. Sunday I woke up feeling antsy, angry at myself for getting 8 hours of sleep. And when Matt expressed frustration over an undeniably frustrating experience at IKEA, I had to consciously remind myself that without Matt, I wouldn’t be able to afford to take all this time to study for this stupid test, let alone have food and shelter. After I’d calmed myself the F down, I walked back into the kitchen and looked sadly at Matt’s eyes, which were smiling at me despite the fact that I’d recently turned myself into a she-devil. “It’s happening,” I told him. “I know,” he said. “I don’t want chicken for dinner,” I said tearfully into his neck as he hugged me. “Okay,” he said, “that’s good to know. I’ll call you before I head to the grocery store.” I nodded as he hugged me, hugged me despite the fact that it was no less than 110 degrees inside our apartment, despite the fact that my wet hair was dripping all over his face, smudging his glasses.

I left our apartment a few minutes later to walk to the coffee shop that’s been my home-away-from home for the past couple of weeks. It’s full of weirdos and nerds and a quiet hum of conversation that’s more interesting than what you overhear in Starbucks. On the way, despite the fact that I feel horrible about my body these days, despite my general commitment to eat organic, I stopped at CVS and bought fig newtons, a box of cheez-its, some gummy bears, and a bottle of smart water (you know, just in case). My stomach already hurts from the cheez-its, and I’m pretty sure I’m not going to be able to eat dinner until at least 10pm tonight. On the downside, I’ll feel guilty for taking a break to eat it. On the upside, dinner will not include chicken.

And for those of you keeping score at home: the guy who hangs out at this same coffee shop who brings with him a stuffed animal that bears a creepy resemblance to a raccoon, yeah, THAT guy just sat down next to me. It’s going to be a long 9 days.

Because She Helped Me To Like Scallops

Hello Internet! Remember back when we were on the trip and we'd write up birthday messages for the people whose birthdays we didn't get to celebrate because we were halfway around the world? Well we've stopped that feature since we've been home because we're, you know, HOME to actually celebrate people's birthdays. But there are some people in our lives who we think deserve to have their birthday blogged about, who we love so much that we just can't contain what we have to say about them.

Which brings me to the subject of this post. Our favorite Cris turned 30 last week and she was out of town and away from the internet (oh, the horror!). So I waited to post this until today, when I know she'll be at work and bored out of her mind. I actually wrote this post while we were gone, because when you're thousands of miles away from your friends and family, it's nice to write about them because they feel closer somehow. (For those of you out there whose birthdays have already passed who are wondering where YOUR birthday posts are, hang tight, I WILL get them to you, I promise.) But, without further ado, a birthday tribute to Cris:

Julie sent me some pictures of the little one today, and as I stared at the pictures of this beautiful baby girl in her little red hat, ready to be loved and adored by her family at Easter, it occurred to me just how much I miss that little one and her family. I only met little-C once, back when she was a wee little one-month-old, but those few moments spent holding her were perfect and precious. She looked like her father to me then, but today, looking at those pictures of her smiling in her red hat, I saw her mom's bright and pretty eyes smiling back at me, her mouth the same happy grin of Cris's. And it just about melted my heart.

I met Cris sometime early on in college. Our paths crossed and doubled back over each other through student life and Scotch n' Soda, winding its way over mutual friends and experiences. We really met through J, and for the first three years of our friendship we danced around each other, not entirely sure how we felt about each other, probably suspecting that we could be friends, but not entirely sure how to get there from here.

But all of that changed one week in March during our senior year. It was spring break and it was New Orleans, hot and muggy and drunk and antiquated, New Orleans. We literally ran into Cris and J and their merry gang of spring breakers on the street, and if you've ever been to New Orleans, you know what a surprise it is to run into someone you know. "Wait," you think to yourself, "YOU like this much debauchery too?!" And then you laugh and get a daiquiri and several hours later you've realized that duh, of COURSE you both like this much debauchery, and perhaps you should get married and have little debaucherous children together. And another daiquiri.

Cris's feet were badly sunburned, and when I say badly, I'm grossly underestimating the pain that she was in. AIR caused her pain, they were THAT sunburned. It hurt my feet to look at her feet. And yet there she was, walking around Bourbon street, drinking and laughing and having a good time. And all at once, somewhere between the time she and a few others went to watch a sex show, but before I showed my boobs off to a balcony of leering men, it occurred to me that Cris was one of the coolest women I'd met in a long, long time, and that if J continued to be an idiot about her, I'd have to beat him up.

Fast forward a few years and a few weddings and a few different cities and here we are. Over the years Cris has become someone who is a true-blue friend. Which is to say that she'd beat up anyone who had anything bad to say about me; she loves Matt fiercely and protectively (which I know because she almost always laughs at his jokes, even the truly terrible ones); and she silently suffers with worry about where we are in the world, following our itinerary to the letter, keenly aware of whether or not we're in harm's way.

In the past few months we've had a lot of time to think about our upcoming move to Boston. We keep saying over and over again that one of the best things about living in Boston will be that we'll have the chance to watch little-C grow up, that we'll get to be a part of her life almost from the very beginning. But we've also spent a lot of time talking about the fact that in addition to the little one, we'll get to watch her parents grow up too, that we get to be a part of their lives almost from the very beginning too. Because Cris came into my life at a time when I was still figuring out what it meant to be an adult, and while at the time it meant flashing a group full of strangers for a strand of shiny, plastic beads, it now means a lifetime full of wonderful meals, ordinary treasures, good jokes and bad jokes, and watching our families become grown-ups together.

Happy 30th birthday, Crissy. I promise that you're only as old as you feel. And if it makes any difference, there's a part of you that will always be just 21 to me.

love,
lizzi and matt

Aboard the Animal Train

We sit around the table, talking at the same time, each person's voice answering someone else's question, commenting on another's thought. It is a conversation punctuated by laughter, by loud, raucous guffaws, by bursts of bright and glorious hysteria, and I look across the table to see Matt laughing so hard that his eyes scrunch into tiny little slits with wrinkles at the side as he nods his head up and down, up and down, chortling into the hand clenched into a fist at his mouth, which is wide and grinning. Cris has to excuse herself to pee, because when you laugh so hard that you have to pee, and you've already had to pee for about 20 minutes, you know that if you sit at a table for another moment, you will surely wet yourself.
**
We wake up bright and early to the sound of the baby's cries. We're not used to it, those of us who are not yet parents, and particularly those of us who prefer to use our weekends catching up on sleep. But when I stumble into the living room, my hair a wild mess, and see the little one on the floor, toys already in her mouth, I feel my un-caffeinated self softening a little, waking up by the sheer energy of the amazing little person I'm seeing first thing in the morning. "Don't worry," her father assures her, "Lizzi doesn't talk first thing in the morning. She'll be nice again in a minute." After I brush my teeth and wash my face, I come out of the bathroom and the little one smiles up at me again, hopeful that I will smile back. And I do. And then she lunges for Julie, giggling as she grabs fistfuls of her hair and pulling her towards her so that she can gum on her face with her two shiny new teeth.
***
I'm in the kitchen now, cooking pasta, chopping vegetables, marinating meat that will later spend some time and then, whoops, it's not done yet!, more time on the grill. "What are we doing in here, hmmm?," Adam moos at me. "London broil. Orzo Salad. Green Beans and Tomatoes," I respond. "Me likes," Adam assures me. I smile as I turn towards my artichoke hearts, waiting to be cut into bite-sized pieces and tossed with parsley and kalamata olives. "Grab me one," Katy calls out to Geoff and he responds in kind, equal parts affectionate and gross, grabbing a beer out of the cooler for himself and Katy. They sit around the table, feeding the baby, keeping the beer bottles out of her reach, talking about talking about talking, and I cook.
****
We wander into a restaurant in Provincetown, ready to stretch our legs after the hours and hours of traffic heading east. But none of us want to be there, none of us are interested in the overpriced menu, or the food that doesn't sound appealing. So we leave, packaging up the baby and grabbing our bags, and head out to the street, where some of us search for good pizza, others of us eating fried seafood and sandwiches. Adam, who snacked too much on the way down, is hungry for none of it. We are not surprised, we probably all have the same thought that's running through my own head: "that's Adam!" We wander around the town, smiling in the direction of Ellie and the overly tanned and muscled men, thinking that we're all tired and zonked, wondering how J and Cris do it day after day with the little one. We find ourselves in a cool little store and J is impulsive and it makes us all feel a little bit giddy for him and for Cris. They are exceptionally nice watches.
*****
We have been around the world, I think to myself as I watch Matt sleeping. We have been to corners of the earth that we will never see again. "A lot has changed in a year," Matt remarks. And he is right. A lot HAS changed in a year. But here we are, back again, back with each other, back where I cook and Geoff is ridiculous, where Adam eats snacks and Katy talks about artsy things we don't understand. Back where we would give anything, anything at all to know what Julie has to say about us, where J and Cris have done the most amazing thing imaginable and brought this new little creature into our circle, into our lives. We are back in the best part of our world, the part where our family knows us, wants nothing more than to be with us and make fun of us, where we always know we have a place to call home.

It's Where Fenway Is

It's been so long since I have written anything for this blog that I hardly know where to begin. We've been home for almost 3 months already and even though that's not quite as long as we were gone, that day is fast-approaching. There are still a lot of stories to tell from when we were gone, but there's a part of me that doesn't know how to begin to tell those stories now that we're home. One of the funny things about having kept the blog while we were gone is that it probably seems as though most of our stories are already out there, already told. But as with most nonfiction writing (and this is something I learned directly from having a best friend who happens to write nonfiction for a living), the stories we told were snapshots of our experiences. So there's this other part of me that wants to mix up the trip posts with stories of our newest adventure here in Boston. You know, ease the transition and all. So this post is not about Southeast Asia, or the trials and tribulations in Delhi, but about our newest home-of-the-moment: Boston.

None of you who read this and actually know us will be surprised to learn that our apartment is still in a state of total disrepair. So even though we actually pay rent for our apartment, and even though we're staying here for more than a few nights, it still feels a lot like we're in a state of transition. And if there's one positive thing to draw from being in a state of transition, it's the fact that I still feel like Boston is on loan to us, that we're hanging out in someone else's home. This may not seem like a good thing. And indeed, as a woman who doesn't have the easiest time adjusting to new cities, it's not always easy. But at times it gives me the opportunity to view this place as just another place, a stop along the way to somewhere called home.

Most of the people I've met who have grown up in Boston love it here. And they don't love it like some people really love, say, mint-chocolate-chip ice cream. No, they love Boston like they love their own beating heart. Without Boston, these people would cease to exist. Their blood would halt in their veins, flowing on a course to nowhere. They would collapse. And the words on their lips in their last moment would be, "Go Sox!" In my long experience with cities, I've found that you cannot dislike a city like that. It's just not possible. Cities like that, cities where the heart and soul of the city really IS the people who live there, just have a way of worming their way into your heart. Pittsburgh occasionally held that charm for me. But it always kept me at arm's length, never wanted to welcome me in to the warmth of its steel buildings. But Boston is the opposite. It holds out its arms, a Sox cap in one hand, something greasy in the other, and says, "come on in, hang out here for a while. Eat some good food. Watch some good baseball. Hate the winters, love the summers." Except that it doesn't really say that, because, c'mon, it's NEW ENGLAND. So instead it stands there looking equal parts threatening, disgruntled, and loving.

One of the interesting things about this place is that before I got here I saw it as a bastion of homogeneity. Except that now that I'm here, I do see more diversity than I expected. It's not everywhere, and it seems like things are often sort of begrudgingly progressive, but there are bits and pieces of change happening all around. And there's a pretty core group of people doing amazingly good work here. The kind of work that makes you stand up and notice it, that kind of good work. It's the kind of work that helps to reinforce my decision to do public sector work here. I think that when you're fighting the good fight, it helps to know that you're not flying solo on the battlefield.

Drivers get a bad rap around here. And not without good reason. Boston drivers are no worse than drivers in any other city. Except, of course, that they are. The traffic here is fine, better than DC, better than Philadelphia. But the drivers? They're ridiculous. Even though the Commonwealth has a pedestrian law that every pedestrian hopes to see strictly enforced, as soon as that pedestrian hops behind the wheel of their car, they'll run you down the moment you take your big toe off the curb and peer gingerly in the direction of the crosswalk. By way of example, I will tell you that before we moved here, Matt never once used the horn in our car. In fact, he didn't even know where it was. He still doesn't. But that hasn't stopped him from pounding his fist on the steering wheel in frustration, hoping to make SOMETHING emit from our car. I, of course, find this kind of driving exhilarating. Every trip to the grocery store is an exciting game of chance. There's also that added bonus to my car trips of ending up halfway-to-Concord every time I get in the car. But whatever. Concord is really pretty. And I know for sure now that it's west of where I live.

I spend most of my days studying for the Bar exam, reminding myself that the pass rate is high, that I've done this once before, and that I deserve an ice cream cone for working so hard. Because of my oh-so-diligent study schedule, I haven't seen as much of the city as I'd like to. I'll admit to being a teeny bit sight-seeing weary, to boot. But in good time, I will walk authoritatively around Quincy Market, smiling in the general direction of the tourists who are amazed and awed by this birthplace of American history. "Yes," I will think to myself, "this is Boston. Welcome to my city. Go Sox."

Checking In

We have been home for exactly 50 days. In that time we have lost three apartments and found one. We have attended a funeral and two graduations. We have put about 2000 miles on our car, and spent about that much in gas. One of us started a new job, one of us applied for several. We made a commitment to eat organic, to find comfort in faith, to spend more time together. In short, it's been an eventful 50 days. But it has also been an adjustment. Because for all that has happened in the past 50 days, it is incredibly, unbelievably, undeniably different than all that occurred in the 50 days before these 50 days.

Before we went on the trip, I knew that there was a chance that a trip like that could really change us. But I feared that it would change us in mostly negative ways. I worried that we would grow really tired of each other and that the trip would make us want to spend as much time apart as possible. I worried that it would be nearly impossible to integrate into my former life upon my return. I worried that I would resent Boston for not being somewhere as exciting as Bangkok. Um, I'm a worrier. But as it turns out, some of my fears were well-founded, and others of them were totally unfounded.

One of the things I have noticed over the course of the past 50 days is that I look at the world as though I'm wearing different glasses. By way of example, we went to hear Jane Goodall give a lecture a few weeks ago. Before the trip, I would have heard what she was saying, would have reflected upon her words as the true message of an incredible woman, but I would have walked away thinking that I do enough to make the world a better place without worrying about chimpanzees in Africa. For the most part, I still believe this about myself. But while I was listening to her lecture, I also found myself thinking that I DO care about chimpanzees in Africa, that I have opinions, STRONG opinions, about the effects of global warming, and that while I believe I do a lot to make the world a better place without occupying my mind with thoughts of chimpanzees in Africa, I enjoy being someone who can stop to think about chimpanzees in Africa.

Just this past weekend, as we were listening to various graduation speakers remind us to follow our passions or risk living an empty life, I found that I wasn't sitting there thinking of all of the things I have yet to do with my life, rather, I was sitting there thinking about what I have already done. I felt proud that we listened to our hearts and bought those plane tickets, that I have decided to listen to my heart and follow it to a career in the public sector, that I realize just how good my life is.

In a way, coming home has helped me to see what an incredible place this was to leave behind for a while. In this new city of ours, I literally have every opportunity at my very fingertips. And I am in a place, a good place, where I feel grateful and excited about that opportunity.

I am very fortunate to have a few people in my life who understand exactly what it is that I am feeling these days. They write me encouraging emails to remind me that the adjustment will get easier. They tell me that I'll eventually get used to living two lives, the one here that I'm actually living, and the one I might be living if I was in, say, Nepal. They say that I will grow accustomed to having two simultaneous conversations, the one I'm having with whomever I'm speaking with, and the one I'm having in my mind about whatever is going on in the wide world. I have every reason to believe that these people are right, that I will get used to this new person that I have become.

I also think that as I pursue my place in Boston, as I find where it is that I belong here, there will be a part of me that might never get used to those feelings, that might never get used to the fact that I was lucky enough to follow my passions to places farther east than here, that I am lucky enough to hear a heartfelt tale about chimpanzees and feel that I can actually do something to make their lives better, that I am lucky enough to be living that moment where I realized that to change the world, all you need to do is to positively affect just one single soul.

Checking Out

As we jetted off to my graduation this past weekend, I finally felt relieved. Not that I was culminating a difficult chapter of our life, even though there was a touch of that mixed in. No, I was relieved because that morning we finally checked out of the hotel we've been living in since the beginning of April. Yes, we finally have an apartment that we love and we are excited to call home.

Think of this: we checked out of our hotel here in Boston EXACTLY six months after we moved out of our apartment in Pittsburgh. If that's not auspicious, I don't know what is.

Home without a Home

We've been back in the country for a little over two weeks now, and while I can confidently report that we are finally adjusted to THIS time zone (read: we are no longer waking up at 6am thinking about where to go for dinner and drinks, as opposed to waking up and thinking about what we'll eat for breakfast like normal people do), we're still not completely adjusted to the...I don't know...the HOMEness of being home.

Basically, not a whole lot has changed since Matt wrote that last post, except for the fact that I can now turn one sentence into an entire paragraph like I just did.

Boston has been less than welcoming to us. In the 10 days since we started looking for an apartment in this crazy town, we have seen forty different apartments. Yes, you read that correctly. Forty. Apartments. Which, for the record, is more apartments than we've ever seen in our long history of looking for apartments. Combined. So we still have yet to find a home, but we're reluctant to settle for anything less than something that feels like it should be home. Maybe that means we're picky. I think it means that we decided that we're ready to set down some roots and dammit, we want to set them down somewhere where we're sure they should be set down!

One of the strangest things about coming back from our trip has been that there's a part of me that feels like we never left at all, that we tesseracted through time and here we are again, having experienced a lifetime of experiences that we can't really talk about because we were the only two people there. On the other hand, it feels like we were gone FOREVER and that now that we're back, we have to re-figure out who we are and where we fit. I used to feel this way about my parents every summer after I came home from camp. It was as though I'd just experienced this amazing thing, totally separate from my life as their daughter, and I just couldn't explain it to them in a way that made sense to any of us. Of course, these feelings would usually end in a loud screaming fight sometime around the first week of school, and I'd pound up the stairs to my room, crying and yelling something along the lines of, "you just don't underSTAND meeee!" This is not really an option right now. Especially because running up the steps and screaming at the hotel we're staying in would probably just get us kicked out. But also because this time, at least, Matt and I went through this experience together, so I do get to feel like someone really does understand me.

Not a day has gone by since we've been home that I haven't pictured Sangita's sweet little face smiling up at me from the floor of the orphanage classroom, or thought of the serenity I felt while standing awestruck under the reclining buddha. But when I dwell on these things too hard, when I picture myself turning from Sangita's face and accepting a plate of daal bhatt from Didi, or walking out of Wat Pho towards the madness of the Bangkok city streets, my heart does a little flip-flop and it really does actually hurt a little bit.

Over the past few years, I have come to realize that although I am more willing to talk about my emotions and my feelings than just about anyone I know, I am reluctant to talk about the thoughts that I hold most dear, the precious thoughts that no one thinks to ask me about because they're so used to me just talking all the time about whatever is on my mind. It's a strange thing to realize that even though most of the people who know you would describe you as an "open book," there are times when you feel more private than even your most emotionally-quiet friends. Which I think is the reason that I haven't posted anything since we've been home. When we were gone, the blog was a way for me to connect my life to the people who usually hear about my life all the time. Now that we're home, I don't know where to begin with the stories about how my life was without them for the past few months. So instead I've remained quiet about it all, or at least quieter than my mind feels, trying to blend back into the life I kind of left behind for a little while, trying to feel positive about the fact that we're still more-or-less homeless.

Matt thinks that we'll both feel worlds better when we find a place to move to, when we're more settled into our lives in Boston. I really hope he's right, because it's definitely surprised me that I felt more settled in cities where the only words I could say were "hello" and "thank you" than I do in a place that's supposed to be home.

Culture Shock

We've been back in the States for a little over a week, and although "home" does not properly connote our current living situation, it's good to be home. As we've caught up with friends and family, they've peppered us with questions and requests for more pictures, but even we've noticed that every sentence we speak seems to start with "When we were in [fill in the country]..." However, the one question that keeps popping up, and we've heard it no less than 10 times in the past week is: Have you adjusted to being home?

The answer to that question is a little convoluted. First, let's just say that we are slowly recovering from our jet lag, so I can safely say that we have adjusted to the difference in time zone. But here are a few ways in which neither of us has still quite overcome the shock of re-entering our lives.

• Recoiling in horror that I just rinsed my toothbrush with tap water
• Driving down the road and thinking that I'm supposed to be on the other side of the road
• Toilet paper is abundant and readily available, like it grows on trees or something!
• Washing and then eating fresh fruit and vegetables
• No longer needing to grunt and point to communicate

Before we left Asia, we had talked a lot about what to expect when we got home. Would we experience culture shock? Or would it be a seamless transition back into American pop culture? I don't know if I can adequately answer either question right now. But I do know that when we were in Nepal, it wasn't this hard to find an apartment.

Safe and Sound

Written and Posted from Philadelphia, PA, USA

We're home! We're really home! Sort of. Because right now, we don't have an actual home, per se. Which means we're actually homeLESS. But we're in Philly, staying at my Dad's home! And in a few days, we'll be in our new home! in a hotel in Boston!

Our flight was totally uneventful, except for the fact that it gave us the opportunity to watch movies and use clean bathrooms (yes, I'm talking about airplane bathrooms and yes, I know how ironic this is). We got in exactly on time and spent last night boring my dad with details about the trip that are probably only interesting to us. But he was a good sport and played along because I think he's happy that we're home! and safe and sound. In case you hadn't noticed, the word "home"! will be followed by an exclamation point for the duration of this post.

We will be spending the next few days trying to get over our jetlag and eating the food that we missed. It's 1:15am in Hong Kong right now and my body can't quite understand why I'm not out somewhere drinking a beer at this late hour. I'm trying to convince it that it really wants to eat a corned beef sandwich from Barson's instead. It is not complaining.

We can't wait to see you guys soon! But for now, we wanted you to know that we made it here in one piece, and that we're home!