Traveler's Burnout...In Need of Chautaras

I had a couple ideas for posts about some of my experiences in Mongolia and Nepal and how they relate to my HLHS mom journey, but after a cardiology visit this past Thurs that threw us for a loop, I'll have to postpone those for a bit. So instead...

Here I was, trekking in the eastern hills of Nepal. We had gone uphill all day, and I was starting to become exhausted. Towards the end of the afternoon, we started going downhill when suddenly at a turn in the path, I stumbled. My legs gave way and I collapsed flat on my back and was unable to get back up. That was the first and only time I felt such sheer physical exhaustion, my muscles in mutinty against my will to keep going.

Sometimes, the load gets too heavy or the terrain too rough...sometimes you can't keep up...sometimes your body says no when your mind says yes or vice versa. Sometimes you become weary of travelling, of wandering, of living out of a suitcase, of the struggle, of not being completely at ease anywhere. Sometimes you just want to fit in. Welcome to...true burnout.

I was always a bit different--so are most people, right? I wasn't normal, my family wasn't normal--my parents sure weren't. And we all ask what normal is--by normal, I don't mean the majority. Because the majority of people aren't "normal." I refer to what's put before us as the ideal. The manufactured, endorsed view of "normal" that so few of us can measure up to. The stick-thin super model with the D cups on a societal level. The impossible to achieve without some major starvation and plastic surgery and a whole lot of lies and touch-up paint.

Most people can eventually come to terms with not being "normal," or fitting in, and even with their upbringings and backgrounds. Yet, when it comes time to have our own families, we start expecting our nuclear unit to measure up to this anorexic "normal." Why?! We become hypocrites when we look at our husbands/children/kitchens and mentally scream, "why can't we just be normal?"

What is it about me that wants Kieran to be "normal?" Why do so many of us want our kids and familes to "just be normal?" Do we only want difference insofar as we can control it?

Yes, I am feeling a bit weary along the way. But Kieran is so much more than doctors and what they say. Kieran's physical life may quite possibly end--hopefully much later rather than sooner--with drs but not his spirit. He is so much more than a diagnosis, prognosis, medication list, or chart. He goes beyond drs and is already a bit beyond this earth by virtue of his experiences...a part of him is already in heaven and he seems to know it.

Heaven? Do I believe in that stuff? Why yes, actually...although this a topic for another post....

Chautaras are as much a concept as they are tangible locations. Among the hills and mountains of Nepal, they are resting spots along the footpaths that take villagers to loved ones who live days away, sellers to markets, patients to drs, workers to distant jobs, trekkers to destinations. Paths that go where there are no roads; roads that are not travelled enough to be on a map. When you reach a chautara, you can sit on the cool of a stone bench in a tree's shade, surveying how far you've come and how far you've yet to go. And you realize that someone thought of you, the weary traveller. Someone had you in mind...someone created this peaceful spot for you.