Connective Tissue

The days have blurred one into the other, so much that I often find myself meaning to write something, and then wake up to find yet another day has passed.

I suppose, in a way, that's a good thing. It means I'm making inroads into this one-year commitment, which could mean I'm one step closer to a new chapter of my life, one that might even unfold somewhere within the contiguous 48 United States.

In the interim, the most I have to look forward to is the prospect that maybe one day I'll be free of the steadily simmering tension and anxiety that's part of being a stranger in a strange land.

Maybe one day I'll climb into my Oasis cab each morning and not feel like THIS will be the day when a Matatu creams my ass into a pulpy blur on a stretch of pavement along Waiyaki Way. Maybe one day I'll walk along the streets of the Nairobi's Central Business District without feeling like I'm getting my ass kicked in a competitive speed walking race.

Maybe one day I'll learn enough Kiswahili to take some of the American edge off my accent, so that people in stores and restaurants won't automatically furrow their brows when I speak, which only deepens my frustration because, hey, I'm speaking English, right??? And English IS the official language over here, right??

Maybe one day I'll develop at least ONE "running buddy" to roll with, somebody I can call up and arrange to meet at a restaurant, or a play, or a club after work. Maybe one day there'll be somebody in Nairobi for whom it's an automatic response to wonder what I'm up to, and to check in at least once a day to find out how I'm doing.

Now, don't dismiss this plaintive reverie as yet another baleful cry for male companionship. Although, well, YEAH, it would be grand if the aforementioned theoretical "running buddy" was a mature, scintillating, single man, with a delightful sense of humor and a strong back, but what I'm really focused on here is connective tissue.

Throughout my adult life, my dear friends have been my connective tissue. Whether they will appreciate being compared to a tendon or mass of glutinous flesh is another thing, but there you have it. They're the mirror I see myself reflected in, or the sounding boards that willingly endure the unleashing of my every paranoid fear and worry. They're the ones I can revel with, and whose support and encouragement spurs me on to greater achievement. And they're the ones who'll just sit there with me if that's all that's required.

Lack of ACCESS to that, even if I didn't have it on a daily, or even weekly basis back in the States, is taking quite a toll on me over here. Now, some might blame ME for not integrating this element into my daily life years ago.......and they'd be right. Every time I log onto Facebook and see the newly-posted pictures of babies and children, or see a Relationship Status line change from "Single" to "In a Relationship" or "Married," I'm reminded of how relentlessly committed I have been to NOT tending my own socio-relationship garden. Increasingly, I find myself reliving the past few decades of NOT thinking I would ever get married, or ever WANT to get married, or ever find anyone who wanted to get married to ME.

Obviously at 27, or even 37, I wasn't considering the prospect of life as a surprisingly hot 47 year old single woman living 8,000 miles from all that's familiar and having little or no success creating an intimate social circle. If I HAD been able to comprehend what that existence would be like, you can be sure I'd have spent most of my time back then trying to land a husband or get pregnant, so that if nothing else I'd have either had someone to call every week to ask where the hell the child support payments are, or someone to constantly nag about cleaning his or her room.

Surely those scenarios are preferable to the numbing sameness of going home to an empty apartment every night, where you know your mobile phone is not going to ring because you haven't connected with anybody locally who might give a hoot whether you fell and cracked your head on the corner of the coffee table, or who might want to borrow your gray Ellen Tracy blazer for a big interview tomorrow.

I've been having those kinds of thoughts a lot lately. For the most part, my nascent hermit tendencies serve me quite well these days, so I get by. But every now and then, especially on a lazy weekend afternoon, I find myself scrunched up on my astonishingly uncomfortable couch thinking, "Nobody knows where I am. I am the closest thing to invisible there is without actually BEING invisible. If nobody KNOWS I exist, do I, really???"

So, once again, I'm reminded that my primary task these days must be finding reasons to come outside of myself and connect with another human being. Somebody who isn't legally or biologically obligated to connect with me for any reason other than a sincere desire to. Someone who's fun and funny, and who doesn't take him or herself too seriously, and who only gets on my damn nerves every now and then. Someone who'd be happy to be my Kenya-based connective tissue.

Let's see where this train goes.