Alive again

Revival: one of the greatest of graces. Every morning a new start, refinding our footing, reclaiming our path--in the great humility of the Journey that we all share.

It's been a rough couple of weeks. After weeks of warmth in Southeast Asia, the return to mostly-unheated rooms of my apartment was pretty difficult. We returned to Wuhan in the midst of a dead-to-life rainy season--only 3 days of non-rain out of 15 before I quit counting. I say non-rain because they weren't necessarily sunny; just absent of rain. And then came a vicious head cold that nearly did me in. I'll be the first to confess that I'm a wimp when it comes to winter and colds/flus anyway. All of it combined with personal frustrations to create a perfect storm of homesickness and winter blues!

In addition, after 22 years of living in the American Eastern and Central time zones--my body seems to keep trying to return to them with a pattern of nighttime insomnia and daytime narcolepsy here in China. Although I've lived over here for a year and a half, I keep finding myself in weird sleeping patterns where I stay up all night long and then barely make it through the day without crashing into an 8-hour "nap"....and the cycle continues! Now that DST has switched in the US, I'm exactly 12 hours ahead of Eastern time--so when I'm pulling these unnecessary all nighters, I'm essentially just returning to Eastern time schedules!

Note: I choose to believe that I'm not complaining, just sharing. hehehe.

But now the sun has returned with crisp spring-like weather for two days in a row! And I stayed awake for 24+ hours on two different occasions to kick myself back into a Chinese time pattern of sleep--so I've been waking up in the mornings and getting sleepy in the evenings like a normal human being once again! And it's all been so lovely that I feel a little silly for the despair that I slipped briefly into!

It's so funny the mundane things of life that get us down. Rain, cold, mildly imperfect health, long boring nights...if this is the worst I have to complain about I am among the first to recognize that I'm incredibly lucky. I'm really thankful that I have such good friends in the US who were really there for me when I was down, and really glad that I have the gift of sweet and awesome students who lift my spirits no matter the weather.

So now's a time for fresh starts. I'm back to nearly full lung capacity and clear sinuses, I'm sleeping when I should and even though the forecast calls for more rain, it's not going to last forever. I'm excited about another week in China. :)