Signals are everywhere. It has been more than a year that I updated my blog, my journal is left untouched in my bedside table; here I am a person who dreams to be a writer who hasn’t written more than some press releases and mails. Maybe once in a while inspired I wrote a nice message to a friend in the distance or describing in my best words my life after a year and a half in South Africa but that’s it. Now thanks to a couple of movies: “Julie and Julia”, “Letters to Juliet”, “Eat Pray and Love” and even “Motherhood,” I noticed how much I miss doing this: WRITING; especially when I have written the last 7 lines without stopping much to think.
It has made me wonder why most of the Expats I have met as well as the blogs sometimes I read of other woman who are far away include one chapter in their life’s in the distance where they seem to loose their own interests, where who you are is put on stake, and even on hold to give way to adapting and surviving in the distance. And that is maybe the answer, adapting is the first thing, a purely survival tool and then finding yourself again in a different and complex environment of what you were used back home. Never easy and definitely takes some time.
So here I am one year and a half later that I left Colombia following my husband to a country which we may consider far away depending of course if you don’t live in Lesotho, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique. One year and a half in South Africa and I wish to say that now I am over the survival phase and now I feel at ease and I am not driving myself or Berend completely crazy with constant meltdowns,crisis and ramblings of: “ I hate this country” to “I miss everything and everyone”and once in a while: "I want to go back to Colombia or Netherlands" fit and confusing him or myself 5 minutes later with things like: "Well is not that bad here", "Is a beatiful country,isn`t it?" "We are doing quite well ,right?" rush of positivism.
But no. I can`t say it proudly because I am far away from that. God, works in mysterious ways and in good ways...depends of course on your perspective. When I started updating the blog I was writing down that I was now a proud citizen of Pretoria,South Africa...but today, after a month...I can only say...that life is teaching me that you always can do better, that there are things to learn, that you may think you are doing something well..and it turns out that you are not and that actually every day is giving me a chance to be a more complete wife and person.
If something...this country...God, this distance is teaching me that: Be humble. Cherish everything you don´t have: public transport, Internet 24 hours, electricity all the time, no garbage on the street, the silence. Learn every day, sometimes in the hard way and sometimes in an easy way things like: Look for wisdom in God, transform what you can, enjoy the time people give you, recognize your mistakes, recognize your own complications and live on. And definitely understanding that my weakness don't define me, but I can learn from them, my mistakes are not the only thing I do but I can find comfort on the fact that they will allow God work through me to change me and give me more faith
We are in our way to change our lives again as we know them. I am happy and blessed I have a wonderful and amazing husband beside me who loves me in spite of me and now as a promise to Berend I will write more again on this blog. Expressing myself, healing through words and mainly putting down the beautiful and complex path we are close to embark. Another quest,hence scary but appealing, overwhelming but beautiul..and well...maybe I will one day say...I am 100% okay and I have learned what I needed to learn...but then of course that will be boring right?
