Turning twentyseven

Twentyseven years ago today I was born in a horrible sleet and rain storm, in a hospital in Albany NY.  Today, I complete year 26 of my life in sunny Kampala, but there is still a brief rainstorm.  It has rained on probably 24 of my 27 birthdays, regardless of where I’ve been in the world.  (Ironically it didn’t rain in Seattle last year.)  I kind of like this rain-soaked tradition.  It also helps me to just assume that all important occasions in my life will be marked by rain, so I can plan ahead accordingly.

It’s both easy and challenging to reflect back on the past year of my life and all that has happened, because so much has happened.  Location, relationships, friendships, home, community, ways of being, confidence and knowledge base – all of these things have changed and grown and been challenged and deepened many times over in just 12 short months.  It’s been challenging, intriguing, intense with periods of wonderful stillness, and filled with so much love and authenticity that I feel so blessed to have in my life.  Smith has been a mind-warp (expletive deleted) and at times a bit exasperating in its constant critiquing analysis, but I still hold it to be one of the best decisions I’ve made.  Uganda as well has been challenging and bewildering, but also a beautiful decision that I would never change.  Seattle was just flat out awesome.

Today I moved around Kampala visiting local women’s and domestic violence organizations, and met with 2 underground queer organizations fighting for LGBTQ rights in a country where it’s illegal to love anyone but the opposite sex.  Needless to say my morning was pretty inspiring.  In the afternoon I shifted gears and made my way back to Speke Resort to meet with my coworkers from Comboni, who were finishing up their meeting with PEPFAR.  We passed time until I took them out to dinner at a local beach restaurant, where Florence (the sneak) surprised me with the information that it was also her birthday.  What!!!  With good company and plenty of reasons to celebrate it was a great ending to a great day, and by the time I made it back to my bed at the Comboni mission I was happily exhausted.

Perhaps the highlight of my day was the brief phone conversation I had with my family back home.  I guess things like birthdays and holidays get me a bit more nostalgic than usual and bring added awareness to everything I’m grateful for, and as the months go by I’ve been thinking more and more of the meaning of family in my life.  Compounding this are two added dimensions: (1) having spent the past year traveling and living far from home the majority of the time, and (2) living now in such a family-oriented, community-based culture.  All of these factors have made me increasingly aware of the importance of family in my own life – and how easy this is to take for granted in our autonomy-focused culture.  It’s perhaps easy for me to feel appreciation because I have a truly fantastic family, and many people aren’t so lucky.  But I’m learning how simply beautiful it is to need and be able to depend on other people – to give, take, and share unquestioningly and unconditionally with a community – and how much my life is enriched through doing this.  For most of my life I’ve embraced the western ideal of “private property,” even among family members, as is typical in the U.S – to the point where I feel bad any time my parents now give me money (“I’m an adult, I shouldn’t be relying on my parents anymore!”).  Now I’m realizing what I’ve been missing, and how much this value of self-sufficiency and independence can actually perpetuate greed and stinginess.  In admitting to myself that I can and do rely on others, I find myself becoming freer with my own possessions, even when I have little.  I am so grateful to have the love, support, and presence of my family back home, and it feels beautiful to be able to depend on them.  Gives a somewhat new perspective on – and a bit less appreciation for – the concept of independence.  We all need each other: this is beautiful.  Maybe it’s just homesickness talking, but I’m anticipating hugging them all for a hella-long time at the airport come December.