Five Days

It is a peculiar thing, this business of bouncing back and forth between countries.  Having two homes and one heart divided between the two can be difficult to handle at times.  Today I find myself just five days away from returning to Haiti.  I am looking forward to returning to my second home and my kids.  However, I am once again going through the difficult emotions of saying goodbye to a place and people that I love.  I am afraid that this saying goodbye stuff may never get any easier to do.

Since I moved back to the US at the end of March, I have almost seamlessly settled back into life here.  I got two new jobs where I was able to meet lots of new friends.  Just about the time that I felt comfortable and happy at my jobs, it was time for me to turn in resignation letters.  I am having to say goodbye both old and new friends once again.

Each time that I near a travel date, I start trying to savor everything around me.  When I know that I won't see my hometown or loved ones for a long time, I commit as much as I can to memory so that I can call upon it when I am feeling homesick.  I begin to take mental pictures of everything: the way the sunlight shines through the trees in the mountains, the way the lightening bugs sparkle in the corn fields, the way my dog prances through the tall grass, and the way the sun sets outside my back door.  With each day that slips away, I become more and more deliberate about everything I do.

This time when I leave my town, I will not see it again for a year (or at least that is the plan).  I've never been away for that long before.  So, as excited as I am to get back to Haiti, I first must go through the process of saying goodbye to the U.S.  I'm sure once the hard part is over and I am on the plane, the anticipation of arriving in Haiti will really kick in, but for now it is a mixture of excitement and sadness.  Like I said, having two homes and one heart is never easy.