low.

It is Tuesday morning, sunny and breezy in our city.

I have this building head-cold, and I’m praying it doesn’t turn into yet another sinus infection.  I am using my neti-pot twice a day, faithfully using my Flonase, taking my vitamins, still feeling rotten.

I am tired.  I desperately need space.  But I don’t even know where to go that is quiet and restful.

What I really want, is to go back home.  I feel a welling-up sense of panic at the thought of living here long-term.  It has been nice while it’s lasted, but now I’m ready for normalcy, for my old life back.

Cartee said yesterday that we are at the three-month mark, which, as far as the rhythms of culture shock go, is one of the low points.  I guess it is good to hear what I feel is normal, but it is still hard to live it.

I long to be back in a community that knows me and loves me, with whom I have history and shared stories and inside jokes.  I long for my friends and their text messages and coffee dates and most of all, for my family and David’s family to be accessible.  I do not want to raise my children apart from them.  I long to worship in our own church, sing songs we know, hear a sermon that speaks to our hearts.  I want to see signs and trees and buildings and homes that are familiar to me.  I want to have a car and drive it.  I want to drink water out of the tap and I want appliances that work.

I’ve had enough of the exotic and now I just want the mundane.