As I mentioned in a previous post, February was the month where life started to slowly feel like it was getting back to normal again for us in Burma. We returned from our R&R in Vietnam and Indonesia with some fresh perspective and gratitude, ready to hit the reset button.
As we reached the halfway point of our tour and I was finally able to leave my walker and cane behind for good, we focused on making memories and ensuring my accident neither became the legacy of our time in Rangoon nor overshadowed the time we had left.
February was also the period of time where I tried hard to engage with life at post again despite still needing a significant amount of time to focus on myself and my recovery.
V planted a vegetable garden in the yard. We met with friends for brunch. I woke up early on a Saturday morning to attend an embassy-sponsored birdwatching tour at a local park called National Races Village. We spent long, lazy weekend days at the pool or the American Club. We tried out restaurants where we’d not yet been and went for walks that increased in length as my mobility became easier.
V and I found that our backyard was increasingly full of bananas and jack fruit, and unfortunately, that ants had raided our kitchen pantry again and again despite nothing being left open.
We planned a weekend getaway for V’s upcoming birthday, as we had for my birthday the previous October. We also started to plan a Balkan dinner at our house for some colleagues; V had brought back some delicacies to share from his December trip to Macedonia.
A member of my consular team—one of our embassy’s locally engaged staff—and I even took a brief flight to Mandalay, several hours north of Rangoon, to visit an incarcerated U.S. citizen. Since I was only there for one night and had taken an extremely early flight to arrive, I went to bed early and didn’t get to see much of the city. I was hopeful I’d have another chance in the future to go back.
February marked a new normal: I was able to walk again and fully manage my own day-to-day activities, finally feeling like I was getting my life and independence back. I started physical therapy in earnest. It was also the first time in months that both my boss and I were in the office together after back-to-back periods of one of us being out.
All in all, despite how quickly the month passed, it felt — as the tour’s halfway point — like a milestone that offered a chance to start again.
Collecting Postcards 