10 Sept (Sunday)—Meltdown

Lest we forget the challenges of these early days, let me note that all is not bliss and happiness. Jeremy and I went to the temple, which is usually restorative, but he was tired and incommunicative with the monks (who looked a little sad and rebuffed when he didn’t go off with them for a chat). Later that evening, someone-who-shall-remain-nameless locked himself in the bedroom because I closed the bathroom door and kept it closed while brushing my teeth when he wanted to keep asking me for something and wouldn’t stop talking at me. (I just needed two minutes to myself to brush my teeth and grasp at some shreds of equanimity.) This was followed by weeping at bedtime: “I don’t want to be here—-I want to be home! Morocco was easier because they let us wear our own clothes and go to a school more like our own school, and we could find food not the same as our food at home, but closer….” He feels badly about the emotional explosions: “It’s because of Bhutan! I’m not like this at home!” And if I get snappy, he feels unloved. All of which makes total sense–and it makes me feel sad and guilty. In the aftermath of an earlier explosion, my young poet noted that he couldn’t understand any better than I could what was going on inside of him. “I’m like a puzzle that’s all broken up inside so you can’t see how it all fits together.” On days like this, I spend too much time thinking about exit strategies that will care for my family without leaving my students in the lurch.