Bad Dreams

 I keep dreaming about leaving- getting leaving anxiety- every night I dream that I'm back in America and I didn't get the chance to say goodbye to my kids. What am I supposed to do? Go on with my life- pursuing dreams to be a teacher to rich white kids with parents who love them? Why should I do that when these kids still doesn't have a mom? Shouldn't I stay here? Isn't that the right thing to do? It's all so confusing. With great privilege comes great responsibility. Responsibility to do what? To be a teacher to rich kids and make enough money to live comfortably in a nice neighborhood? Or to stay in a poor country loving these kids? But- even if I dedicate my whole life to this- it won't fix the problem. There will be orphan after orphan, abuse story after abuse story, and even if I help as many as I can it won't even put a dent in the problem. Does great privilege entitle one to sit back and enjoy their privilege? 

Part of me doesn't even want to go back to America. I was looking out the window today at the big apartment buildings and the street leading past the palace away from our apartment, remembering the first day I woke up in Romania and was a little scared, but mostly curious, about the unknown. I was not on U.S. Soil. This used to be communism. All the buildings looked so blocky. The people looked different. Would I be okay? Would I be good at my job? 

And now- it's my home. And while I miss Jiff Peanut butter like crazy, I don't need to go back to huge shiny elevators and clean streets and English. These small elevators and dirty stairs work just fine, and Romanian is a beautiful language. Who says America is the center of the world? (Actually, the Romanians do. They don't know why I came here, because they all save up money to leave here and go to America, or at least another European country to work. They play American music on the radios, dress their children in shirts with Minnie Mouse on them, and encourage watching American movies like Finding Nemo. America is their future.)

I'm crying now. What am I doing with my life? :) I asked myself the same question when Bradley left. I guess when you loose something you love, you start to question everything's meaning. Which proves- that love- specifically choosing to love others and to give your life to their service- really is the meaning of all of this life stuff after all. So, maybe, even though I have a lot of faults, and I don't listen as much as I should and I'm not that observant, and I say the wrong things and make the wrong comments, and slaughter my Romanian when I talk, and I don't know how to fix a lot of problems for people and situations, maybe if my heart is at least breaking at the right times, I'm doing something right.