Spring Cleaning in Feb.

Turns out Spring comes early in Cairo, or in actuality, winter never really came so we had an extended Fall that is running into the season of Spring.

Spring Cleaning took on many forms for me the past 24 hours. First, I decided to do an overall of my room. This is no easy task since some of the furniture has real marble tops, you didn't know I was living the high life, did you?

I decided since the downstairs child throws tantrums at different times throughout the day and night, I should move my bed away from the window. This has already proved to bring about a new sense of peace in my room.

Secondly, my attitude needed an overhaul. So I wrote a list (if you don't know, I'm extremely obsessive about to do lists, pro/con lists, really anything that can be put in a list)of rules for myself. Don't worry I'm not turning into a legalistic lady. I'm just a lady who needs to be more grateful, less cynical and pessimistic, and happy.

In all honesty, I haven't been happy since I landed in Egypt, even before the death of my grandmother. But I really didn't try very hard and I found a way to justify my unhappiness in homesickness, job description misunderstandings, culture shock to the point of feminism seeping through my pores, and so forth.

Once, my grandmother passed, my anger only increased and happiness took the form of looking into ways of escaping the path I chose. However, I do not discount that death can bring about a new sense of being and make one focus on things so easily forgotten in the busyness of what we believe is life. I have re-focused and even though this may mean my 3 year plan will change, it doesn't mean I must forgo my days here and learn and change and be happy where I'm at.

The older I get, the more places I live, I finally and unwillingly understand you are the same person, with the same habits, tendencies, sins, wherever you land geographically. That by merely changing your location won't change the inside junk that is piled up in ever crevice of your mind. Change can happen in Arkansas, but this can happen as easily in Egypt. This seems like such a simplistic concept, but it is surprisingly simple to overlook.

One thing that this internal cleaning is doing, is bringing forth the grieving that I'm afraid of. I thought that I was a pro at the grieving stages, knowing what is next and that it doesn't really end. I mean, I've had my fair share of practice.

But, the longer I'm away from Arkansas, the more I tend to believe that October was a dream, and that when I return, my grandmother will be sitting outside in the nursing home's garden, smoking her cigarette. The realization that this isn't true, has been hitting me in the chest. However, I don't think I will accept her death fully for awhile, and it may take my return to the town full of our memories to face the reality of her passing.

Anyways, a few other areas of cleaning are in regards to my lifestyle. In Cairo, I don't really have the opportunity for my normal stress relief of running outside. For one thing, I don't need to attract anymore attention to myself, and women do not run outside here(a cultural thing). But good news, there is a women's only gym around the corner and I'm signing up.

I've come to believe that exercise and what you ingest affects your mood. That brings about another overhaul of diet and lowering my caffeine and sugar intake. What can I say, I'm a southerner. When you fix tea or coffee, I expect 3 to 4 heaping spoonfuls of sugar. As well as, I expect butter and oil and bread, and deep fried anythings to be part of a meal.

Finally, I want to seek G-d again. The key word being WANT, not just need. The longing for a relationship, of only needing that ultimate relationship and knowing that through Him all things WILL be redeemed, not may.

Usually, I don't share my life overhauls with others, but I feel that this is what I need to do to be here, in Egypt, away from my normal accountability group of friends and family, and to find happiness. And not the fake happiness I learned growing up to present a strong front, but true happiness in life, in others, in G-d, in myself.

If you were able to make it through this very self-involved post, congratulations and thanks. I miss you all dearly and look forward to our reunions, whenever they may be.

A recent quote from dear, C.S. Lewis: "Experience is a brutal teacher, but you learn. My God, do you learn."

Indeed, it is.