things i'll never blog about

My pooping patterns.

How little the men in this country are.

I won't post about on how badly I want to get my hair braided but how I'm not sure I can pull it off. Or what to do about my watch tan without risking not knowing what time it is.

How I sometimes miss Illinois with an intensity that physically pains me in my lower left abdomen.

That one fine day I thought about staying here for another semester.

The moments, when the unfinished buildings and shoeless children cloud my vision, that it really does seem hopeless. A project for another lifetime. I keep these private.

How I don't even necessarily miss the best parts of my country. I miss the way an American billboard is laid out and the melodic screeching of women talking over each other on The View.

My parents can't read a blog about how I secretly kind of want to get malaria just to say I had it.

How many things I do just to say I did them.

How "theatre" sometimes gets stuck in my throat when asked what I'm studying. Despite all of the intellectual twisting and sorting I've done crafting a fundamental justification for my major, it is still difficult to look the orphanage director in the eye and feel okay pursuing anything other than feeding the hungry. Of course, I know, I think, I tell myself-  culture matters. But really, how do the arts stand up to the realities of suffering in our world? I'm working on it.

The game I've made of having to tell guys here that I'm married, as our program recommended we do when they get too pushy. Each time, I add to the myth of my pretend spouse. His name is Philippe. He's a doctor; part-time musician.  Phillippe is 6'9" with dark wavy hair. He cooks and he cleans and he also wants to rhyme our children's names if we have quints. Phillippe loves basketball, Disney movies and playing Harry Potter Clue. He is great fun to brag about, but I imagine it will be disappointing to return home and remember that Phillipe is just a figment.

I won't blog about crying at the post office.
I won't blog about the strike because I don't know how I feel about it.
This is for the journal.

I'll never blog about blogging. About my earnest desire to look back on a collection of stories that are honest and candid. Words that capture the hard questions and serious doubts as well as the mountains and roses of this journey without filtering for anybody.

How glad I am to have Booey here with me.

How sometimes I meet ex-pats and I shake my head. I only ever want to be a pat.

How I try to compare what I'm missing to what I'm gaining, but I can't tell if I'm in the black. A quarter missed of the Greeks in my acting class; four months of the reading and writing I've been yearning for since high school. Falling behind in precious relationships; starting brand new ones. A little less college; a little more exploring. No autumn; extra summer. Apples and oranges, I suppose.

What if being here with so little just makes me even greedier when I get home?

How little I know about the world. About elections, predictions, findings, catastrophes and progress. I'm asking for a subscription to Time magazine for Christmas.

How when it's quiet, as it always is now without my ipod and my "ghana be epic" playlist, I'm surprised and disturbed by the distant destinations of my mind. I've never given it so much free time before.

What if I never come back here?

What if I do?

I won't blog about the surging frustration of not being able to fix things that are broken. Or not even knowing how. Or when it broke.

The difference between changing and growing up. Where I'm at on that spectrum.

Nor will I blog about how slow people walk here and how much it drives me crazy.
Or my weird existential questions about what scale we're supposed to live at. Like, how I can go home with Ghana in mind or if I'm supposed to go back to coffee and Greek life or what this thing has to do with anything.
Or how narcisstic narrating can feel.
Or how much the orphanage smells.





oops.