I should be in bed and asleep already, but I'm not

I've just been thinking about life, as you do when it's coming up to midnight and you're still not in bed yet. (My sleeping schedule is totally messed up at the moment. Once I'm better I'll try to get myself into a better routine, but in the meanwhile I'm liable to be awake at odd hours)

I got to talk to blest this evening, which was fantastic. Just hearing her voice, and the boys in the background, can transport me back to El Paso, back where my mind keeps trying to take me. And let's face it, my mind does wander there a lot at the moment. I miss them all so much, and also I miss the sense of purpose that I felt when I was there. I knew where I was, and I knew what I was doing. Now that I'm home again I'm not sure I kno either what I'm doing or what my purpose is.

I've been reluctant to make plans, although I know I'm not going back to Texas anytime soon, the unpreparedness of knowing just how much I would miss them and the constant questioning of people (some of whom still think I was meant to be gone for a year) asking me when I'm going back have led me to not want any fixed plans, so that I still had the freedom to jump on a plane at a moments notice, should the opportunity arise.

However, life happens, plans have to be made, and life is getting filled up. I'll be looking after Little one and his sister two days a week for the foreseeable future. I've been invited to weddings in April and June, and I've booked to go to the New Frontiers churches conference in Brighton in July. I'm back on the rota for kids work at church. All of these things need be and my attention to be focused here. And yet eveyday the question in my head and mind has been "When can I go back? When can I escape again?"

It's not that I don't love my family. It's not that I don't have friends here. It's not even like I met a guy over there and started going out. It's just that my heart doesn't seem to be in living here. And that's what I was thinking about, that's what I realised this evening. I will get to see blest and co again, that's a fact - as Andrew put it "I'm one of the family now". However, it ain't happening just yet, and I need to put my heart and mind into living here. I need to face the fact that I am here, and this is where my life is taking place right now, and I need to put my heart and soul into living here, and not just existing.

And to be honest it scares me. Going to live in the States changed me. I'm not the same person I was back in Novemeber, and I don't exactly know yet how this person fits back in to life here, but that's what I've gotta do. So that's what I am going to do. My life is here, in London, and I need to stop just existing and start living it.

Tomorrow I'm going to meet with a lady at a local school to talk about the possibility of working there. I don't know exactly what the job is, or whether it will be possible to work it around child-minding, but I'm going to give that door a jolly good push and see what comes of it. And after that, well, I'll let you know what happened tomorrow evening. But if that doesn't work out then I'll keep actively looking. Cos this isn't just a holding zone until I can go back to Texas, this is my life, so I ought to be living it.