September 10, 2006/Present

Okay, wow, an actual blog posted on September 10, actually written on September 10. I think I’m relatively updated now. I’ve posted what I needed to most of the day today as I sat home in my apartment trying to recover from a cold. Everything is out of order but it was literally cathartic vomiting, one piece after another. I can’t believe I found half the things that I did on my hard drive. Pieces from the past that I allowed to be buried there, deep into my DOCUMENTS folder. Pieces that should have never been forgotten because forgetting about them was like self-denial. I mean, if I was fine now, why go back to the parts of me that seemed too complicated to revisit. Too long to even recount to my friends and family so I would constantly seem like a random mess of ideas and feelings with no origin. “Wait, so why did she turn into such a flaky bitch when she came back from England?” Because I was depressed you see. “So, why did she scream at me when I wanted to leave the light on all night at our hotel?” Because I was imagining people displaced from the war with no electricity or food in the dark. “So she actually thought about suicide?” Yes. I was in pain. “Over poverty?!?!?” Sure and indifference and the fact that that’s just how it is and even though it affects me in ways I can’t even understand, I just have to deal. “So, why can’t she sleep at night sometimes?” Because I wonder still, what has become of me and all of my experiences. Sometimes it takes time to sit back and look into the past and choose what explanations you want to give and when the right time it is to give them. I’m sure when I have more of it figured out, I will hole myself into my room on another sick/rainy/weekend day and unleash another set of self-revelations. When I’m ready.

For the first time in over one year, I’m starting to feel alive again and I thank God that the process was so painstakingly slow, that at times that I had no real sense of self-awareness. Stunned from the culmination of personal experiences and tragedies, I fled to Brazil and here, I just went through the motions, I didn’t think, I didn’t know what was going on, I was just doing. I worked and lived mindlessly for the first time in my whole adult-life it seems. Being a kindergarten teacher was perfect. Somehow in my mind, I knew this would help me, heal me, I mean, it’s not like swimming with the dolphins or anything but working with children brought me right down to the fundamental basics. Holed up in a gated school all day long for ten hours, I didn’t have to think about poverty or the opposing worlds or politics or economics or anything, except when I had the little time that I did to read or watch the news or when I was absolutely starved for intellectual stimulation beyond Brown Bear, Brown Bear What do you See? I got caught up in the monotony of my grueling schedule, too busy cleaning up vomit, wiping up snot, playing board games with four year olds, cutting out animal shapes, creating lesson plans and organizing a class full of 20 little five year olds. When I came home, I cried out my frustrations, my loneliness, whatever residual pain or heartache that was still bottled up within me, alone. Good lord, I still cry. But it’s different now, the storm has passed. I had long conversations with God and myself. Hablé a todas las paredes en mi casa. I’ve accepted and strangely enough, there is serenity. Sometimes, when you know that it’s just you and God now, time and solitude can make all the difference.

Tomorrow, I will walk into school and say hello to my helper, Jeovana. I will ask her about her life and what she did all weekend. She will probably tell me that she hung out with her family and her boyfriend at her family’s beach house and suffered intensely from the cold front that moved through Espritu Santo this long weekend. Devoutly Catholic, she will make another reference to God that I will pick up in my daily speech and overuse. “Alli esta vindo Jefferson. Felicidade de pobre dura pouco. Deus me livre.” (Jefferson’s coming. A poor man’s happiness is shortlived. God save me.) “Pelo amor de deus, ninguem merece este frio…” (For the love of God, nobody deserves this cold) I will wait for her to make another loud declaration to the children to scare them shitless into obeying her. "JESUS ESTA OUVINDO!!! VOCE PODE ME MENTIR A MIM, MAS, JESUS ESTA OUVINDO!!!" (JESUS IS LISTENING!!! JESUS IS LISTENING!!! YOU CAN LIE TO ME BUT JESUS IS LISTENING!!!) she will shout in Portuguese as she shakes the child into submission. I will see Bruna, my brilliant, little Japanese-Brazilian pupil, walk up to the reception plaza where we greet the children, holding her mother Sandra’s hand, half asleep with her bag of toys. (Monday is toy day.) I will greet her and test her out to make sure she, my star pupil has not forgotten any English over the four day weekend. “So, how are you today Bruna? How many toys do you have? What do you have? Wake up Bruna, no sleeping in school.” She will start off in Portuguese until I give her the face that I give when I pretend not to understand, the English will slowly seep out. “I’m fine. Four toys. Dolls. I’m sleepy. You’re crazy.” Then my little blond-hair, blue-eyed German doll student Filipe will run up and give me a big hug and shout. “GOOD MORNING TINA! I’M FINE!! HOW ARE YOU!!!” One after one, the procession of children who expect me to be there everyday and fill in the role of their caretaker will roll in with their individual needs and adorable idiosyncrasies.

During some part of the ten hour day, most likely when I’m playing either a board game or dominoes with my other class of babies, my mind will wander and I will think about the vacation I will take in February to Jamaica, what my next step is, when am I going to take the LSATs, where I will move to next, where I would rather be now, how I could never actually fathom having children and be subjected to such mindless game playing with four year olds just for the simple sake of love. Then, when it’s time for the kids to go home, I will plant big hugs and kisses on them, my last human contact for the day, and thank the lord that the day is over and hope that I haven’t taken it too much for granted or been too discontent because I still can’t imagine disappearing forever, either them or I, from each other’s lives when this is over in December.

This is everyday. This is, has been my life for the past year now, routine. It was my long route to keeping busy while figuring things out. And now, the end is almost near, I am ready to move on and yet still grateful that I am forced to learn patience. It still has meaning. And tomorrow, when I go into school, I will find it. And hopefully, this time, I will go in and cherish that meaning, in the beauty and the simplicity of it all and be inspired enough to write about it.