rude awakening

I like my snooze button. Anyone who has experienced me in the morning when I am required to awake at a predetermined time has witnessed my alarm going off a significant while before that time, me flailing to shut it off, and the alarm going off again. This phenomenon is often repeated up to three times each morning. Eventually I drag my lazy self out of bed, but am not usually fully conscious for about another half hour, only after an injection of coffee or some other source of caffeine.

I have discovered the last week of my life to closely parallel my morning habits. As you can mostly tell from previous blog entries, I was in Africa for almost 3 months. Maybe that time period represents a good night’s sleep. Maybe even a few pleasant dreams as I saw the way aviation works on the mission field; played with all sorts of fantastic animals; and relaxed at the beach. A few not so pleasant dreams as I trudged through the streets of Kibera; looked into the eyes of a child orphaned by aides; drove past camps of people displaced by the election violence last year. Before I knew it, my alarm started going off: I was getting on a plane to go home.

As is my habit, I flailed. I blindly sleepily reached for the button to turn off my alarm so I could return to the dream world. Of course, I am not getting any quality sleep at this point, I am just dozing back into the world I remember of Africa. I spent my first full day in the states alone, trying to adjust to being in America. Mostly I spent the day pining away after the people I left in Africa. But the reality is that I am done with that part of my life. Alan said it well: “Wherever you are, be all there.” I have to stop hitting the snooze button, I have to stop pretending I can go back.

Lucky for me, I haven’t ever needed a friend to come in with a bucket of cold water to wake me up. Unfortunately for this phase of life, I think I do. This morning I flew for the first time in 6 months. 6 months of not flying is a lot of time when you have only been flying for 3 years. I felt very overwhelmed, not knowing if I could really do it. After that, I went to visit professors under whom I am taking classes this semester. I have a ton of work I have to do to catch up. All the work and the flying hit me like a cold bucket of water in the early morning. Not a pleasant way to wake up, but I know its time to wake up and face the day.

I would love to go back to bed, to curl up and pretend I don’t have to do all of this. But let’s face it, my bed is kind of wet now. I can get up and face the responsibility, or I can curl up and ignore the fact that I am soaked. Either way, I can’t hit the snooze button. I can’t go back to Africa right now. I have to be in the present; I have to be here to finish what I started. It’s time to find some caffeine.