It feels strange to be sitting here updating my blog from the United States instead of Haiti. If anyone still checks this, I'm sorry that it has been so long since I have posted an update. I think part of the reason is that I have been avoiding thinking about Haiti.
I have been back in the United States for just over a month now. That time has flown by so fast! I will be honest, for the first three weeks back here I was so overjoyed to be home that I did not really miss Haiti at all. But, this week I've caught my thoughts drifting to Haiti, and more than once I've checked my "Haiti friends" facebook pages and blogs. Each time I find myself doing those things, I feel overwhelmed by emotions. While I am still very happy to be home, I am on the brink of tears each time I think of Haiti. I believe that I am meant to be here in the U.S. at this time, but I miss my Haitian friends, speaking Creole, and most of all I miss my amazing students. I think about my Haitian friends in my neighborhood begging me not to leave or I read an e-mail from Nickson saying that my students were asking for me, and it feels like my heart shatters into a million pieces. That was my life for almost two years. It is impossible not to feel this way. It seems like it was a different lifetime or a different world compared to where I am right now. How can two vastly different places even exist like this?
I don't want to have to feel this way. I don't want to have to divide my heart between two places. It's too painful. So, for now...I try to push it from my mind. I try not to think about it. But, that is impossible because Haiti has become a part of me.
I read a quote by a friend tonight that seemed so appropriate. "....And because I cannot forget, I cannot live peaceably."
