Kristin and fake snow at The Grove shopping center, Hollywood, CAI've been back a week now. Seen lots of people, driven on 8 freeways (most of those in one day), gotten used to throwing my toilet paper in the toilet instead of the garbage, eaten more than my share of all that food I've missed out on this past year.
And, through talking with people and answering their questions, I think I have processed more about the last year in this week than in the whole year itself. It's really quite different being removed from it - when it's your daily life, you often don't think twice about things that I am now realizing are horrendous and not part of other people's daily lives!!! I often need the reminder "this is not normal," and I get that when people respond in shock to things that I just breeze right over. Oh yeah...they aren't used to these things. Really, I shouldn't be either.
But I have realized things like when I don't really feel much emotion when I find out about the death of one of the Nigerian girls, but then I weep for days at the plight of women in the DRC that I will never meet, I really am processing things. It just comes out in other areas that are not my daily reality that I must cope with. I detach from the streets of Athens so I can work every day, so the emotion comes out in other areas that I don't have to deal with personally.
It's really fun to be concerned with what restaurant to eat at and shopping for makeup for a change. Ha.
3 comments:
It must be hard to transition back. Glad to see you have your sweet Kristin with you. This Kristin is waiting patiently for my turn for some Kelsey time. :)
less than a week! :)
I have a lot of suggestions for what restaurants to eat at! Hurry back to California lady!
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