It's been five months since we moved to Chennai. It's a good time to do some reflecting and share how we're doing. I'm gonna share the challenges and disappointments before I get to my growing grateful list. I usually give myself up to six months to whine as needed before I give it up and choose to love where I live. Bear with me, I'm almost there.
First of all, I don't feel super attached to Chennai yet. I could move away and miss little about it, that is, the place. I'd definitely look back with happy thoughts and memories but I'd be fine to move on. I am however attached to people here and for that I am grateful. Andrey's coworkers have been amazing and I'm really looking forward to getting to know some of them better. I've got a couple of solid friendships and several others that are moving in that direction. I have friends I can call on to hang out with Ella for an evening so Andrey and I can go out. I have a friend that I meet with weekly to share how we're doing and pray with and this has been a huge encouragement and blessing to me. I love that no matter where we live I end up with some amazing friends. Seriously this is the number one best thing about Chennai so far - the fact that I've made some genuine connections with some amazing women. Last week I had six women over for drinks and food and conversation. Reminds me of all the ladies' nights my friends and I would take turns hosting in Cebu. My first ladies' night in Chennai made me ache for my friends in Cebu. A few have moved on but many are still there and I keep in regular touch with most of them.
I often long for life in the US, which is really strange because I don't remember missing the US since I first moved to Thailand in 2004 when my intro to life overseas was HARD and I was grieving not living in Seattle anymore. I really haven't had the desire to live in the US for many years. I'm not sure why I do now. Maybe it's because we spent ten months in the US in between the Philippines and India, or maybe the novelty and excitement of moving around the world is wearing off, or that I'm not so rooted in India yet that it's easy to look back to the last place we lived and fantasize about how good it was. But this longing for the US has surprised me. I regularly daydream about what life would be like there. If I could choose I would live somewhere in the Pacific Northwest and do a way better job at getting out in nature than I ever did when I lived there for seven years. I crave the old growth forests and the fresh, cool air. Oh to have a neighborhood to walk in and open green space nearby to enjoy!
Writing of air, what to do about a physical incompatibility with the air where you live? I have never experienced a place so dusty in all my life. My sinuses and lungs regularly protest and I wonder how could live in a place where it is difficult to thrive in the physical environment. I seriously have to limit my time outside on the street. Thankfully I have a regimen that makes it tolerable: nasal rinsing, nasal spray, a heavy duty mask which I use if I have to take an auto rickshaw and an inhaler. Seriously, who wants to be this high maintenance?
I realized recently that my life and work in Chennai will never look anything like it did in Cebu. I'll never be as involved in street-level community life here as I was in Cebu. For example, the ability and freedom I had to get to know a pregnant woman living on the street and assist her in finding a safe place to deliver her baby and help her plug in to our amazing local church community because of my connections, my midwifery experience and understanding of the public medical system as well as my local language ability - I'll likely never have that here. I don't think I will ever speak Tamil which pretty much limits my interaction with the poorest people here. Plus foreigners just aren't welcomed in the same way. Tamil is such a difficult language and unless I am working somewhere where I need it to function like I did at the charity clinic in Cebu when I first arrived, I'm not going to learn it well. As long as I can navigate life here as easily as I do without it, I won't learn it. I am having a hard time accepting that but I think it's just something I will have to learn to be okay with.
I guess I am still grieving the loss of our lives in Cebu. I thought because we had all this time in the US in between the Philippines and India that I had done all the grieving there was to do but as I write this and the tears come I realize otherwise. I know this is the normal process and that helps me accept it for what it is. It usually takes a good six months or more to process and let go of a place - a life, a community. I'm so thankful that we are forever linked to the country and people of the Philippines, not only because of our seven years there and the lifelong relationships we made but because of our daughter and her heritage.
While I need to acknowledge how I feel, I can't dwell on the negatives. I
have this recipe for joy and contentment which I've learned over 11
years of living overseas which I think is just a great way to live no matter where you are. Be thankful. Don't complain. Count the good things. Celebrate and enjoy them. This is where I choose to dwell.
Here is my growing list of good things worth celebrating:
(Please forgive the poor formatting. I can't seem to get the changes I am making in the draft to translate to the actual page. This must be why real bloggers don't use blogger.com!)
- Friends - some from our church, some from Ella's school. So great to find natural friendships with parents of Ella's buddies at school. Great for coordinating play dates and mommy lunch dates during the school day.
- Good health - I've had some challenges and discouraging days and weeks but it seems I have turned a corner and am feeling so much better.
- I am virtually anxiety-free! This is huge. In my last post I shared about the breakthrough I had emotionally and spiritually in letting go of worry and control that brought my anxiety from an 8 down to a 4. And then soon after I decided to go caffeine-free for the first time in longer than I can remember, ten years? With caffeine out of my system the anxiety has gone down to a 0-1. I can't tell you how happy this makes me. I have been sleeping great and only have trouble sleeping a couple of times a month (compared to a couple of times a week before). Yay yay yay!!
- With my new way of approaching health challenges and health-related worries, I am finding such joy in the new level of closeness I have with Jesus. Where I used to fret before and spend a lot of energy on how I am going to fix whatever thing I perceive as a problem (because I was taking on the burden of my health) I am now inviting God's wisdom and praying for guidance and healing and then settling into the peace that comes because of it. Such a better way to live!
- With the better health I have been exercising more. I have been setting goals and have reached them two weeks in a row. This includes 3x yoga, 3x cardio with lower body strength and 2x upper body strength workouts each week. With the regular yoga my back is feeling so good.
- More time with Andrey. His workload is full but it's not like it was in our last years in Cebu (which was crazy!). He doesn't need to travel regularly and often doesn't need to bring his computer home. He's more physically present and emotionally available, which has been great for our marriage. Not that it's only been him who needed to grow in this area. Both of us certainly did but the more sustainable work load is helping a lot.
- A great church community with lots of girls Ella's age.
- A great home group where we love eating together.
- Organic milk delivered to our door every morning. I would have never guessed that was an option!
- Green Goblin - a company that brings green vegetables that aren't available in grocery stores like kale, sprouts, crisp lettuces, baby spinach, microgreens, and Swiss chard to Chennai from Mumbai every week. I have missed fresh salads and am now getting my fix.
- Paperman! A recycling program that comes to pick up your recycling and forwards proceeds to the charity of your choice. I mean, that is cool.
- Our cats. They are so cute and healthy and we love them.
- Some awesome Aunties (and great friends) who love to hang out with Ella.
- Some meaningful work. I have had the opportunity to support several pregnant and breastfeeding women in Chennai. I completed my midwifery license recertification and I have enjoyed doing some online courses for that and learning lots of new things and then getting to use the info with the women I'm working with. I LOVE THIS WORK! Since on-call midwifery is not really an option during this season in my life I am looking into doing a Lamaze childbirth educator training. I found one I can do within India by traveling to another city for a workshop then the rest can be done online at home. There is such a need for childbirth education here and I really enjoy teaching and would love to get good at it. At some point I'll write a post just about all I've been learning about common birth practices in Chennai. So much to tell.
- Networking with other midwives in India. I have had the opportunity to connect with seven fantastic midwives living and working in India. Two of them are Indian, the rest are foreign. We are united in our desire to see pregnancy and birth experiences as well as outcomes for mothers and babies improve in India. It is not an easy birth culture to interact with as a midwife.
- Signs that I am beginning to feel settled here. One of which is feeling ready to start exploring other parts of India. (I was so sick of packing and moving around after our ten months in the US that I didn't want to go anywhere for a while after we arrived in India.) We went to Kerala last month and will be visiting Jaipur in Rajastan end of this month.
- We have visitors coming! Andrey's parents will be here one month from today. Andrey's aunt and uncle are coming in January. Our guest bedroom is slowly shaping up.
- Ella really likes school. She is learning so much and has made some good friends that she talks about all the time. Seriously, the school is awesome.
- We are finally getting a car! Our bank account took over three months to process and that has felt like a really long time. I have many taxi driver friends now but the convenience of having our own car is going to cause a great spike in our quality of life here. And my sinuses. :-)
