reentry

i've been asked by many how i've adjusted to reentry to life in the United States since returning from Haiti.

Easy.

I've rushed.

Between finding a gas station with a working air machine to fill my semi flat tire, to starting a new job, to paying my now late bills, to catching up with old friends, and returning phone calls, and cleaning, and doing laundry, and shoveling snow, and updating the blog, and grocery shopping, and catching up on bible study, and and and....

there hasn't been any time to worry about reentry.

and yet, only 4 hours away by plane lies a country devastated by one of the worst natural disasters of all times, with over half a million homeless people trying to survive, and thousands of children still trying to find their parents, and hunger, and confusion, and anger, and illness.

i don't want to rush by my life anymore. i don't want to quickly forget.

i want to experience the pain of reentry in its fullness, the sense that i have too much, that i have led myself to believe that i need too much, that i have forgotten what life is really all about.

my third grade teacher once wrote in my report card: "lina needs to take time to smell the roses".

it's about time i learned that lesson.