It’s 9 years today.  Actually the tailspin started 9 years ago yesterday as a plummet, and then 9 years ago today it became a full nose-dive tail-spin kind of thing. (Please forgive my lack of precise vocabulary all you aviators.) Nine years ago today “La Crise” (“The Crisis”) started.*  Sometimes it get’s referred to as simply “The Civil War.”  Both terms seem to be an oversimplification.  A crisis would’ve ended sooner than this spring.  A civil war just doesn’t seem like the encompassing term either.

With the advent of every September I wonder, “Will that week jump up and grab me again?”  The question itself should tell me that it will, and it did.  The bite was more of a nip this year, but it was still there.  It still bids tears I would rather not cry.  It still points out the gaping holes of having so many people I care about accessible most often through the magic of facebook.  It still begs the question if my African home can be healed.

Even though the tears flow, even though I miss so many, even though there is so much still to  be set right, I will choose joy.

I will choose to remember that evacuation brought me to my dream position.  I will choose to enjoy the relational connectedness of facebook.  I will choose to revel in the fact that I get to enjoy my family more because there are no oceans to traverse.  I will choose to embrace the new connections I have because of living in a new city and working with so many other TCKs.  I will relish the fact that even though I’ve been grounded for most of the last year, I’m meant to travel and visit people I love in both new and familiar places.  I will choose joy even when my eyes leak.

What are you choosing today?

*If you would like to read the whole story of the events of this week in 2002, please go here and start with part 1.

photo courtesy of justmalia