Family Time

I realize it's been about two whole months to the date since I last posted. A lot has happened since then... I'm back dating posts for chronological purposes instead of trying to pretend like I sucked at keeping up with my blog over the summer.

I've commented several times on the concept of home. My theory of what home is, exactly, was confirmed by the presence of my mom for three weeks here in July. She came in at probably the worst time ever, the middle of the summer. Funny thing is we kept telling her that the weather here wasn't too bad yet - hot but not oppressive just yet. She had a rude awakening to life in the desert because in fact, the week she got here was just the week that the summer humidity started notching up. The worst feeling ever is after just having cleaned yourself up to go to work, stepping outside to get to your car with no more than a 20 foot walk from the door of the building to the door of the car, and breaking into a sweat, fully drenched within 5 seconds. That's what summer feels like here. A lot of people were complaining back at home in the States, but it's a completely different level of hot you didn't think even existed except for in ovens and saunas.

I digress. We had the family out here back in March, and that was certainly a good week, but a short one and full of exploration and new places and feeling like we needed to go see stuff. This time was different. Since Mom was here for 3 weeks, we had a chance to do normal life, family stuff for the first time in a year (the last time I was home since I moved out here was Christmas, and the holiday is rarely"normal"). We had a family dinner together every night of the week. I came home for lunch to be with Mom. I took her shopping for fabric to take to the tailor and have clothes made. We went on family walks. Fell asleep on the couch in front of the TV at night watching late-night news shows. Went grocery shopping together. Now that I think of it, the last time I had 3 full weeks of regular family time was probably within the first couple of years of college.

And it felt like home. Doha has felt like home for a while now because of relationships that I've built here and the life with which I've grown comfortable. The first time I felt that way was when I came back from my first Eid break last October in India. I was happy not to be in hectic India anymore and the comfort of Doha. But this was a different feeling of home. It felt normal. Life in Doha rarely feels normal - or rather, it's rare that a day (or at least a week) goes by without realizing how not-normal my living situation is, all factors considered. But having both Mom and Dad here under the same roof, doing normal family stuff I'd missed for a while threw me back to the days when I still considered Oxford my home. Except it wasn't Oxford. It was Doha, where I've now built a life for myself and for 3 weeks I had my family (or at least part of it) together. Home is what you make it to be.