At least Bad Days < Good Days

Yesterday marks two years since I’ve moved to Madagascar. Sometimes I think I’ve grown. Sometimes I think I’ve become more immature. Sometimes I think I’ve become disconnected to the rest of the world. Sometimes I think I’ve screwed up my life because I will never, ever be the same person that I was pre-MG. Sometimes I obsess about ten pounds I've gained this year. Sometimes I wish for a life where I had my head in the sand. And was perfectly content to go to vacation to a Mexican resort twice a year and live in land of butterflies and cotton candy (but not actually butterflies, because for some reason I’m like, SUPER afraid of them). Sometimes I think I’m the luckiest person in the entire world.

A lot of the time, especially today - I feel like a sucky expat. I think that after two years, I should be used to the poverty/death/dead dogs lying in the road/inequalities.

But it still affects me. Sometimes more than I’m okay with.

I don’t know if this post will make it on the blog. I liked my blog better when there were like ten people that read it – and none of them worked for this project. Or maybe it will make it on the blog and I’ll look back in six months from now and see how things have changed for the better.

I have a friend that is generally on the same in/out schedule as me. We’ve flown together a lot and so we’ve spent a lot of time together. He’s from a totally different country, different culture, and different everything. So I like hearing his point of view on things and hearing about his life. I personally think this is one of the coolest opportunities I get to have here – to learn about the world by talking to people from all over the world.

So today, my friend comes in my office, to catch up, talk about our holidays and what’s new. For some reason, I start talking about the two days before I left Madagascar and the events that transpired. I spoke factually. I kept it to the short version. Half way through the story, my lips were quivering and my hands were shaking.

I wrapped it up, I started to downplay the situation, saying things like, Well every expat has a story like that, etc. I changed the subject and we continued to talk, but I was still shaking. I went for lunch – still shaky hands.

The factual “accountant” side of my brain is like – yeah, someone died who you didn’t know, and it was five weeks ago, and he had been sick for a long time, and this is a third world country, and life happens. People die. Get over it already. Stop thinking about it. Stop talking about it. Thinking about what happened won’t bring him back or make anything better.

I ate lunch, had a micro-nap, and went back to work. Just like any day. Don’t know why I feel so crappy about it all though.

(sorry for the depressing post. More craziness and ridiculousness to come very soon, I’m sure)