Month: December 2012

I had a birthday last week. In one year I’ll be 40. I don’t really care about the number as much as I care that my skin looks old. Have you seen Lenny Kravitz lately? That guy hasn’t aged a day in the last 20 years. Totally jealous.

So after checking out my frown lines, smile lines, gravity lines, genetically programmed lines, and permanent sleep creases (darn stomach sleeping) and lamented the fact that I didn’t wear sunscreen and a hat, carry a parasol, and stay indoors during daylight hours between the ages of 13 and 25, I ordered some “intensive wrinkle repairing” voodoo serum along with some other lotions, liquids, gels, and creams to hopefully get rid of the face I have and replace it with something closer to Camille’s butt.

I’m thinking it will be like Nicolas Cage in that movie Face Off and I wake up with John Travolta’s face. (Not that I actually want *his* face, but you get the idea.) I’ve heard that these AHAs, BHAs, retinols, and ground up unicorn horns can totally do that.

So be on the lookout for my new and improved face — as long as I don’t end up looking like Nicolas Cage I’ll consider it a success.

I can’t explain how it feels to be back in Oman. It’s very similar to after we were evacuated from Egypt and found ourselves welcomed, embraced, encircled by family and friends, and the entire experience was lovely and wonderful and steeped in bittersweetness.

It physically pains me to see my kids so happy here, surrounded by their school family, embraced by teachers and students alike (as opposed to the “no hugging” rule at their current school), being pulled from group to group, “come to PE with me!” Or “sit with us at lunch!” Seeing tears of happiness and sadness in Carter’s eyes as he says “I’ve missed my friends so much!”

Do they have these kinds of relationships at their current school? I don’t know because there isn’t an open door policy there. I don’t walk down the halls several times a week (or day!) forming new relationships with repeated greetings the way it happens here. There is no Costa Coffee in the cafeteria to keep us chatting in the lunchroom in between drop offs, pick-ups, and classroom activities.

Being here reminds me of what is lacking and I don’t know what course to take. Find more reasons to be at school? Try to make it a more welcoming place? Is that even possible when that runs counter to school policy/culture? Or do I go outside the system and go back to homeschooling next year, giving them some of the freedom and flexibility that they’ve been missing?

I’ve always said being happy isn’t where you are, it’s who you are. And that is smacking me in the face as I try and figure out our place/purpose in Bahrain. I’m sure that part of my dissatisfaction is rooted inside me, but I’m also realizing that my happiness is related to my kids’ happiness and as they get older I have less and less control over that.

I haven’t seen the boys this genuinely happy and relaxed since we left Oman. They practically floated down the hallways of the school, fitting in like missing pieces of a puzzle. While the world is talking about adding armed security and buzzers and visitor badges and locked doors at schools, my three showed up with only a smile on the arm of a friend — no prior notice, no notes or permission slips, no questions asked.

I don’t think it gets any better than this, but I’ve become determined to find or create the next best thing (and also come back and visit as often as possible).

I went to Josh’s work Christmas party and it started out with a VIP guest sequestering all the wives and telling us, “I worry about you all the time. I’m not sure if I should be advising the VVIPs if we should not let families accompany their Marines to Bahrain. Tell me what your thoughts are about living here” Yep, totally what I wanted to do on my birthday — defend my ability to live here.

It’s not my favorite place (yet, still holding out hope on that one), but it’s not all crazy dangerous. And for the most part, the other Marine wives share my point of view. We tend to be a pretty hardy bunch. If someone doesn’t want to come here, don’t come. If it’s to much for you, go home. But don’t try to ruin it for the rest of us who want to be here. I’d take a year in Iraq with Josh, rather than stay behind with 4 kids by myself. That wouldn’t be safe for any of us.

And for those few who feel like its not safe here, a quick glance in the news will show that we’re not safe anywhere — not in a shopping mall buying Christmas presents, in a movie theater watching a long awaited release, or even in a kindergarten class at school. We live in a messed up world no matter what part of the globe we’re on.

And speaking of safety and stupid, we’re on our way to Oman right now — flying above the clouds. As we were boarding and installed Camile’s car seat and strapped her into her 5 point harness, the flight attendant came by and told us that she would have to sit in our lap for takeoff and landing FOR SAFETY PURPOSES. Cause you know how human arms are WAY stronger and more reliable than a crash tested carseat.

We told him “No” and when he persisted that his supervisor required it, we told him to go get his supervisor. He never mentioned it again. By that time I was so fed up with stupid people and stupid policies and my stupid week that as we took off I smiled and took comfort in the fact that if our plane crashed and we all died, I wouldn’t have to deal with stupidity ever again.