Disorientation

The six to nine month window after people move to another culture (or place, let's say) tends to be a swampy period.  The new isn't new anymore, but it isn't familiar either.  There's a certain fatigue to the adjustments, the discomfort, the meeting people, the waiting for life to settle.  Grief can rise, restlessness, unease.

My brother said one word for this is "disorientation."

In the last month, I've had two dreams that we were suddenly moving back to DC, each layered with confusion, and each ending with the sinking fear that we were going to have to live with tics again (in case I wondered if I were utterly traumatized by my kid getting Lyme's disease...).

Recently, on a cloudy cool day, I made a grocery list like always, organizing it by the departments of the store.  When I walked into Trader Joe's I stood there for a second looking from list to produce department, realizing I'd been picturing the layout of our east coast store instead.

Disorienting.

This morning it took waking kids, eating breakfast, drinking coffee, dropping off at school, and through yoga class for my brain finally to shake off the dream and reorder back in this reality.

So I think as I go to bed now, I am going to pray for God to orient me -- a big fat anchor for conscious and subconscious to ground me here and now.