Recent Events

I'm not a news-checker.  Normally I am happy to let the world float on by me without much notice or mention in this blog.  But with this week's recent events, I can't ignore the news.

I'm not publicly political, so I have no comment on videos or apologies or security measures.

But I am a member of the diplomatic community, and I have stood by that flagpole that had its flag desecrated.  And I've walked through the courtyard that was stormed on Tuesday.  And I remember tanks rolling through my neighborhood eighteen months ago.

We have left, and so I'm relieved to watch the news from a distance.  But we have friends who are still there and watching and waiting to see if their lives will fall apart again.

Life is always dangerous, no matter where you live.  Anyone can die in a car crash, or get cancer, or be in the wrong time at the wrong place.  All of our lives end at some time.  So living overseas has never scared me - we can die in America just as easily in Azerbaijan.

But hearing of the targeted attack in Libya has changed the feeling of comfortable security I enjoy.  It doesn't take very many bad guys to cause a lot of trouble.  And one of those people in the consulate could have easily been my husband.

Yesterday I couldn't reach my husband at work.  He wasn't answering his cell phone either.  And our internet was suddenly not working.  I had no way to reach him.  I don't panic easily, and I try to stay rational, but I was worried.  Last week, it would have been an obnoxious confluence of events.  But yesterday it was something to worry and fret and send alarmed text messages about.  Funny how events  over a thousand miles away can make you break out in a cold sweat when you can't reach someone on the phone.

This is the life we've chosen, however, and we don't plan on giving it up.  Everything has its dangers and everyones dies at some point.  There's nothing I can do to change that.  So we keep on doing the everyday things that our lives consist of.  Brandon goes to work, I take care of the children, and we are happy to see each other safe at the end of the day, happy to join together for dinner.  Happy to chase the children around the house and tickle them and kiss them put them to bed together.  Grateful to sit down and enjoy our time together.  Grateful to go to sleep with our best friend next to us.

One day at a time.


And for those whose days together have run out, we are thinking of you.