nostalgia

Declan and Daniel are sleeping away in the master bedroom. Sigh. If Declan doesn't wake up in half an hour's time, the whole getting up at 2am and not going to sleep again may replay itself. I know that it took about a week when we flew to Chicago from China in order for everyone to get aligned with the local time, but unlike in Chicago, I'm actually pretty much adjusted now myself, and it's like taking care of a newborn again when Declan fusses for me to get up with him.

My initial hope was that he would just take a late afternoon nap around 3:30pm, after we came back from visiting a potential church we might join during the duration of our visit. Two months is a fairly long time to go without any community, and I hope we can find a strong one. It's too hard to go it alone with a kid in tow. I often wonder why I seem to struggle so much more than any other moms. That's what it feels like anyway, as I feel more dread and loneliness and frustration and uncertainty every day than anything else. Daniel said that considering the fact that before the age of two, Declan would have lived in four different countries and have visited more than ten different cities, perhaps it's not so much that I'm incompetent as our lives have been and are just insane in terms of providing me as a new mom with any semblance of stability.

I hope that's the reason. And that things will be a little better with the new baby, even though we would be in a new land in which I currently don't speak the language.

While waiting for the other two members of my family to wake up, I started surfing the net. Dreading a bit another new start to a church relationship in this coming weekend. Truthfully, I have such a conflicted experience with every church I've ever been to, and I recently noticed how in all the weddings of people I know in my Pittsburgh local church, all the girls have at least two other girls from our church as their bridesmaids. This demonstrates to me the depth of friendships that were shared in the church I went to...in contrast with my wedding. My bridesmaids (excluding family) were entirely outside of that church. In fact, none of my church friends knew the two girls.

I thought further about how in the church I went to during college, everyone there essentially married each other off. I really have to think hard about someone there who married "outside." And I personally disliked dating guys I went to church with; not sure why.

All this to say, I've always felt an estrangement from others in the churches I attended. And frankly, I'm tired of it... I wonder what it is about me that screams standoffishness. I wonder if I'll ever belong anywhere. While looking through old fb pictures of a recently married Pittsburgh friend, I came upon a kayaking trip I got randomly invited on in the last minute and in which I had one of the best times of hanging out with church people ever. It made me miss the people I hung out with on that trip a great deal, and I wish I had treasured our time more than I had while I was living it.

Also, damn, I looked so thin in those pictures. I actually had a flat stomach! Oh, the past that will never be again. :P