A Dirty Bed Does It.

It’s really early. So early that my kids are still asleep and the sun is barely in the sky. As a general rule I make it my prerogative not to get out of bed before my kids do. They are such early risers that I can’t bear the thought! But on this beautiful Saturday morning in South Africa, with the early rays of light finding there way onto my walls, I can’t help but be awake. We are supposed to Burundi in just three months. The end of February signals the beginning of “crunch time” in my head. Time to plan, pack, decide what the leave and what to take, get the house SOLD, say goodbye to a decade of life in Durban… but instead I am struggling to wrap my head around any of it. I want to go outside and stare at the sunrise forever, and forget about all the goodbyes, the new beginnings, and the FRENCH that is in my future.

Someone told me at a party last night that my life sounds “so exciting.” I thought… “Does it?” Right now, to me, it sounds like a logistical nightmare that I can’t put off. We have to be there in June. There is no postponing it while I get all my ducks in a row. June is coming, whether I like it or not. It’s time to really own this future of ours. It’s time to believe in the impossible. It’s time to trust myself, my husband and my God that I can do this. I can live there. I can be a successful woman, wife, mom and photographer there. We can change the lives of people if we go, but the likelihood is that we will be the most changed of anyone.

Risk has a way of breathing life into everything. When I woke up in the hills of Burundi, on a bed that was so dirty I could only manage to sleep on top of it, and pillow-less to boot, I knew my future was there. That was the moment, my moment, and it snuck up on me like the gentle shift of a wind on our beach at home. As Neo played under the mosquito nets in the early morning light on that dirty bed; I knew that we would be sacrificing the house, the relationships, the place that has made me into who I am. I don’t know who I would be if we had never moved to South Africa, but I don’t really want to meet her. South Africa is our home. My kids were born here. I grew up here, from newly married girl on an adventure to the woman I am now. I am so grateful for what we have met here… the people who are just like family, the constant sunshine, the beauty, the crime, the disappointments, the failures. It has all shaped me.

I know I need to give it all up, risk it and re-create my definition of home. Home is wherever the three bodies that mean everything to me are. They are home, and this home is on the move.

Happy Saturday,

Kristy