April 21, 2002 Honiara, Solomon Islands
Well, it's been an exhausting day emotionally. We saw our dear friends off at the airport this morning. It's hard to believe that our 9 years of being family together here in the Solomons is over. It just doesn't seem real that they are finished with their project and gone.
I didn't actually cry too much at the airport, mostly just got teary and couldn't talk. I even smiled at Beth as she was going through that horrible door that swallows all my friends.
But then we came home and I just went straight to my bedroom and lay under the ceiling fan and bawled for about an hour. The kids kept coming in and looking at me. Andy sat with me, turned on the AC (this is the only house with AC in one of the rooms), listened to me, and brought me a Coke with lots of ice.
Then we decided that we will definitely be going to Papua New Guinea at the end of this year. Not doing the deputy director job again. I just have no emotional energy for that. I can get excited about the village and how things are going there; I can hold it together in Tawatana for the sake of the translation.
But when it comes to thinking of doing admin again, and another complete year of home schooling, I just get totally depressed. So this last month in the village has been hard, just thinking all the time "I have to be all things to all men for another year or more." No matter how much I think the translation is worth it, the thought of doing admin again was just hanging over me like a huge cloud.
So today we talked about all that and Andy finally convinced me that it's OK to not feel responsible for the entire group, and just do what we think is best for us (including me). He can get a lot of the checking done by email, plus make a couple of trips back from PNG when he needs to. So that is the latest plan. I feel like I can make it now.
I think it's just been a long haul for me, nine years of doing things that I don't feel very good at, and which consequently exhaust me, especially home schooling. I said to Beth the other day, I just need some help. Practical help, not psychiatric care, although some days that seems like a good idea, too.
I feel like I just have to hold it together by myself in so many areas: spiritually (without church or fellowship in my language), physically (without medical care), emotionally (with friends leaving)--and I have to hold it together for my kids, too, trying to provide all that they would get from school, Sunday School, etc--and feeling guilty when I can't. Plus trying to keep track of all their emotional issues and be the family therapist. It's like there is never a minute of rest, ever. Not a minute where I don't have to be on alert for something.
I don't think there's really much that can be done to change this, it's just the name of the game. But it's exhausting long-term when I don't get a break from it at all. And the political situation here is just the icing on the cake. So I'm pretty much at the end of my resources, and it's time to call up the reserves in the form of the Ukarumpa International Primary School.
Maybe I'll be OK now.
