Visiting Friend, Reflecting Priorities

I'm visiting my friend who almost died last month in childbirth. I arrived last night (well around 1am) after spending most of the day flying. Jerry was nice enough to drive me to the airport and watch my dog. As a part of my over obsessive self, I couldn't help but be a little worried when he joked as he left me at the airport "I'm free!" I certainly don't want to be making someone feel that - although I think/hope that this was just Jerry's way of being funny.

It is strange being at my friend's place. First, I still have a lot of work to do - grading papers and reading - that I've brought with me. Secondly, I've never been to my friend's home before and haven't seen her for like a year, and all of a sudden I'm jumping into our old friendship and trying to help with her newborn and having to cook for myself here.....I'm feeling a little bored and disconnected right now. She's sleeping in her bedroom with the baby. I can't really concentrate anymore on my grading. Her husband, who I'm not very fond of, is returning to town in a couple of hours. And its overly apparent that she and I have made these VERY different life choices. She never really found herself workwise and is really traditional in a lot of her religious, gender, and political beliefs. And, I can't tell what she thinks about my choices.

I have a lot of friends like this - people that I'm very close with, or at least have been at one time or another in my life, but don't talk with or see on any regular basis; people that I'm very different from in some ways, but have felt very close to in other ways. A lot of things in my life now - and often - feel disconnected. I wrote about this in my thesis actually, how I feel disconnect between my American and Israeli selves. But its not just that. Its also a disconnect between my family self and my independent self, my feminist self and my dating Jerry self, my Jewish self and my Buddhist self. Sometimes, I can feel a unity, but often, I feel like I have these different parts of myself, and there isn't space in any one place in the world to connect with these parts.

But being here makes me feel like I really don't want to get pregnant. I don't necessarily want this experience that she's having. I would love to have children - to adopt. But, I don't want to have to give up everything in my life for it; I don't want to live in the suburbs and give up my career and not be surrounded by diversity and intellectualism. I'm also torn about these things because of my on going fear that what I want isn't possible (aka my father's nagging voice in my head). I go home on Wednesday by the way. And, oh yeah, I've also realized that I desperately need a proper vacation and SOON.