Snotting black

one lucky girl and two moochers

Dear Log,

I guess it’s about that time again. I can see my suitcase over there resting near the fireplace. Wait a second…no I can’t. I just remembered I put it in the hallway. But I can see my backpack over there. Next to it are big orange bags of peanut butter M&Ms stuffed in tin cups, waiting their turn to hop in and pile onto the baking mixes I bought after a hungry trip to Wal-Mart. I didn’t know how much I wanted biscuits until I was hungry at Wal-Mart and thought about not having the option of eating biscuits for 4 months and then I realized I would do almost anything for a biscuit. This translated into purchasing the mix.

Mother gave me the peanut butter M&Ms but she doesn’t know I’m taking the tin cups. It doesn’t matter anyways since we never go camping anymore. I’m also taking a ziplock container that my family does use regularly, but what she doesn’t know until I’m thousands of feet in the air can’t hurt me.

Soon I’ll be getting into a big airplane, flying across the pond and then the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea before arriving in Egypt, my dear Egypt, mother of the earth. I don’t believe in the Mayan prophesy of the apocalypse in 2012, but if tiny dinosaurs do flood the earth and devour all living creatures like a plague of adorable but lethal locusts, then I hope they’ll come in late May, when I’ll have returned to America and could see my family one last time. They are good, kind-hearted people, simple prairie folk that enjoy a football game and a cold beer or lemonade. They also hate being referred to as simple people, and it’s adorable when they get mad.

Log, I’ve sure learned a lot over the break. I learned that some people ask you questions about Egypt even though they don’t really care. I learned that my parents sometimes care more about making me feel loved than my complexion so they give me things like peanut butter M&Ms and lactation cookies. I learned that it’s important to force your family to go to breakfast at IHOP at 6:30 in the morning on the day you leave because sometimes there’s a beautiful sunrise and eventually people forget about what an inconvenience the whole thing was.

Most importantly, Log, I learned that relationships are the most worthwhile and exciting thing we have on this earth. Rather, I re-learned this. One bright day I was out run-walking with my two sisters, and I imagined someone driving by and seeing us,  a perfect picture of sisterhood, two blonde ponytails and one brown one swishing in time. In that moment I felt like I was the luckiest girl in the world. I felt so blessed to be outside under the sky with sisters I love so much. Maybe this is just the sleep deprivation talking, but I feel like my travelling has brought me to a place of appreciating what I’ve always had and recognizing it as beautiful.

Log, I’m excited about the future and I’m excited about going back to Egypt because I have family and friends that support me and that my least favorite option for post-Egypt, coming back to Oklahoma and living with my family, is still wonderful.

Drevets out

P.S. I realized while writing this that none of us were wearing ponytails that day. I just remembered it like that in my head. Must be the old age.