To have gone

I'm not sure if there's magic where you're going, but there's magic in the fact that you dare to go. One year ago on the day I wished for this exact feeling. Mission accomplished. 

A pink cotton candy year

This past year has been so much more than can be put into a couple of sentences to summarize it all so I won’t even try. But I will say this – it’s been an amazing year, I’ve accomplished a lifelong dream and I’ve done things I never would have imagined I could.

Some random occurrences this year – not necessarily the biggest or best, but stuff I’ll remember always.

• Eating spicy barbecued meat (I’m hoping cow meat and not some strange bush meat) bought in the street during a night out dancing in Sierra Leone
• Saying goodbye to my girls in the airport in June and suddenly getting hit with the hugeness of what was about to happen
• Running around GRC trying to find a catheter for a boy, praying to the God I’m not sure is there to please not let him die. Having to call his time of death less than an hour later and then crying in rage over the hopelessness and helplessness of the whole situation in the car ride home
• Changing to my dirac and hijab in the bathroom on the flight from Ethiopia to Somaliland and then stepping out to realize everybody is staring at me and my thoughts immediately jumping to “what if this colour/length/type of dress is only worn by prostitutes!?”
• Coming home to my new house after a 12 hours shift in the hospital to find that my roommates have saved dinner for me – and will sit with me so I don’t have to eat alone

Last year I promised to be happier, healthier and gutsier. I’m not sure if eating oily African food, drinking a coke a day and working 250 hours in a month could ever be called healthy, and I’m pretty sure that the amount of days that I’ve cried, have been more than any other year so probably not my happiest year in the sense of smiling and laughing – but I am certain beyond a doubt that I’ve been the bravest I’ve ever been, so I guess gutsier is the only accomplished one, but the way I see it it’s the most important one, the one I really needed to prove to myself I could do.

Next year I actually do want to be happier, I want to do things for fun and for me. Hopefully I can have as many laughs this year as I had tears last – I might have to start going to a stand up club or something to make it happen, but at the very least I’ll try. Maybe I’ll be able to fulfil some other lifelong dreams this year – but if not, that’s fine too, some fun, carefree, light-hearted months might be needed after this roller-coaster of a year.

Cheers to a cotton candy and pink bubbles year!