Starting Over

Before I begin my starting over entry, I want to share with you just how clever my girls at the home are. I was giving my sexuality workshop today and we were going over the anatomy and physiology of the male and female reproductive organs. When we got to foreskin, the psychologist asked one of the girls to pay close attention because she has an 8 month old son and it is very important for her to know how to care for it. The psychologist also mencioned that certian cultures and religions have the foreskin removed for various reasons. The girls asked for an example and I told them that most jews have the foreskin removed in a religous ceremony when they are babies. One of the girls chimed in and said that Jesus was Jewish and then asked if Jesus had foreskin or not. The Psychologist and I just looked at each other and she finally said that that would be a great question for the head nun. But seriously, I´m really impressed that my girls are thinking critically. ¿Did Jesus have foreskin? Hopefully I won´t loose too much sleep thinking about this one.

Anyways, starting over.......

Starting over is a way of life. Wether it is by choice or circumstance, it is an unavoidable stage in life. We all start from scratch various times through out our lives in a million different ways. It can be by starting a new job, breaking off a relationship, the death of a loved one, moving, having a child or simply taking a new aerobics class at the gym. Some people self impose life changes regularly while others get into their little nitche in life and only start anew when forced to. Whatever the circumstance, starting over is hard.

I seem to fall under the self imposed catagory. Every year or so, I like to pack my bags and embark on a jounrey unlike those I have had to date. Peace Corps is about as extreem as one can get to starting over from scratch. I left all my friends and family, a relationship, my native language, my car and basically everything else I knew to live in a strange new place. And it was hard. Anytime some one starts over, you go from being secure and confident to not having a clue what you are doing. For me, there is notihng worse than not knowing what I am doing. Yet I keep doing to it to myself over and over again. I think I am some kind of a masecist.

Case and point: last night was my first night with my new host family. This is now my 5th host family. I don´t think it ever gets any easier. Even though I knew this family coming in, there is still the usual awkward "Hi, I live in your house now". I have to retrain a new host mohter to leave me alone and not treat me like I am 6 years old. At the base of it, I really hate living with a host family. I understand the benefits of living with one for a little while so one can better learn the language and culture, but making it maditory for 2 full years is a bit extreme.

So, I´m in my new house now and it´s good, but I couldn´t help but wonder as I was laying in bed last night, why i keep putting myself through this. My new house and family should be better than the last, but I felt so out of my element for the ump-teenth time. All the new and different things were strange and I found myself missing my old home. Crazy I know, considering how badly I wanted to get out of there. But you can never under estimate the power of comfort and the terror of the unkown.

Despite my aprehension about starting over again, all and all, things are going really good right now. I spent the last two days at the beach with various friends. The water has magically become not disgusting and actually a really pretty blue. There still is a decent amount of trash but if you swimout far enough its not that bad. So I`ve been in the water a lot, and I couldn´t be happier. I took the day off from the beach to go back to work. Lucky for me, it was totally worth it because of the whole jesus/foreskin question. I hope all of you find this as humorous as I do.