The Best (Way)laid Plans

"If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans" is a Yiddish proverb I came in contact with the other day and I couldn't help but laugh myself as its relevance to my current state sank in. I am sitting on my bed in Ohio, my head still spinning nearly 10 days after uprooting the life I've known for two years and coming back to live with my parents at the age of 27. Certainly this is not a place I expected to be at this point in my life. To top it off, I am home and expecting a baby in a few short months, whose daddy is still stranded on his native African continent as we endure the long and arduous process of obtaining his visa. I'm not entirely sure I even know where to begin with the thoughts meandering about in my head over the last month of activity and bustle bringing me to the present moment of... of what I'm not even sure! At present I feel I'm in some sort of time warp. Waiting to find a job, to meet my baby, to be reunited with my husband, to start grad school and maybe at last settle down into my life. It really is like waiting to exhale. They tell you before you lift off for service, all through training, right up to COS conference that adjusting to life as you knew it before service will be even more challenging than adjusting to life in a foreign country was. They tell you to expect to be overwhelmed, to feel lost, but they don't really provide any direction on how to find your way forward. I guess because each volunteer's journey will be different and each readjustment unique. Myself in particular, extremely so, I think, as I also adjust to the new role I've taken on as a wife (now separated for an undetermined length of time from my spouse)and the very life-altering events that are soon to occur when I become a mother! All of this amounts to a heavy pill to swallow. I keep finding myself staring off into space, lost in thought. I open the window and think I will certainly see someone walking through the yard, someone peeking through the blinds, children playing noisily, people doing their daily chores; but everywhere is calm. People are at their offices or locked away in their homes. I hear only birds and cars flitting past- each with only one passenger, thinking only of their daily grind. I miss being able to walk out the door and wander anyplace my feet decide to take me. No real concept of private property, no fear of being abducted. The reassurance that wherever I may roam, if I tire I can always flag down a bush taxi or a moto ride home.