{Happy} Birthday

Why is it that on my birthday I feel like all the forces of the universe should align themselves rightly so there would be ONE day that is memorably blissful? One day when the things that get under my skin in microscopic doses, slowly stealing your nutritious happiness, get eradicated or at least momentarily cease to exist.

What would that birthday be?

 If I could be anywhere, do any thing today, where would I be? 

What would I do?

Initially, my dream would be to be on an island somewhere- Corn Island, Caye Caulker, Costa Rica, Seychelles? We would have our own private hut, where we could sit out and read books all day, order frozen drinks and fresh fish off the beach. The kids would be...somewhere. Close enough to wish me a Happy Birthday (maybe via Face Time?) but far enough away where I wouldn't have to care for their immediate and pressing needs.

Instead, here I am, in Uganda, with babes throwing fits and rubbing their runny noses on my skirts. Ear aches and tummy aches. Dishes and planning the next meal. Unshaven legs and tousled hair. The sound of kids stealing mangoes and neighbors chopping our fence.

  

Bodas and matatus,lizard poop and roaches. Poverty, and Lubwisi, and culture confusion, and uncertainty. And the frustration that as soon as you write an email or type a blog post, the internet inevitably fails. 

Every. Time.

And yet, this is the reality of our life on my 32nd birthday. And, somehow, in some crazy out-of-sorts way, I don't think that I would really trade it for my dream of the beach scene. Because really, it's these things, the ones that get under the skin in microscopic doses, that don't always suck away the happiness and contentment. Sometimes they actually help build resistance to life's blows, and to the bigger threats that are bound to take place in this thing called life where even on your birthday the world is still not as it should be. It's these things that make you fight for your treasured happiness, and make you discover that it takes something outside of yourself, outside of your control, outside of others, and outside of this world that truly brings deep-rooted joy to the soul. 

Which is why because of Jesus, I can today find ultimate fulfillment in my chaotic, nontraditional life in Uganda, instead of wishing for the pristine white beaches somewhere else. Sticky pineapple hands, belly-rolling child laughter, tender husbandly kisses, & that bag of organic spirulina chips that arrived yesterday...Yep, they are all going to make this the best birthday yet!