The Little Things

This has been a crazy week at work. I’ve worked a string of very, very long days and I am beat. Up until now I have been working a lot (like 10 hour days), but truthfully it hasn’t felt that bad since my commute takes all of 30 seconds and the compound staff take care of many of the chores that suck up my time in the evenings in the US. But man, this week… this week I’m feeling it. This is the kind of week where I’ve wished I could change the time stamp on my emails so that my midnight emails don’t make me look so pathetic.

During weeks like this, it is pure grace when the compound staff, a colleague, or my wonderful husband do something nice to help me out. A few nights ago when I got home, totally pooped, I was completely grateful to see that the cleaners had left a big stack of folded laundry sitting on my bed. Of course, then I got closer and discovered that none of the clothes in the stack were mine (not an uncommon occurrence). But then I got even closer and saw that buried at the bottom of the stack was this t-shirt:

At first I didn't even recognize it, but then... oh. my. goodness. I brought this shirt to Sudan in August on my first trip here after John and I got married. I was all mope-y about leaving my new husband so soon after the wedding and (please excuse the really gross neediness) brought one of his old t-shirts to sleep in so that I would feel close to him. This t-shirt is perfect for sleeping- it’s big and soft. But then while I was on my trip, it disappeared in the laundry one day. I searched the laundry room, I asked all the cleaners, I turned my room upside down, I looked in every pocket of my giant suitcase, but it was definitely gone. When I came back on another work trip in October, I vowed to find that t-shirt, but to no avail. I just had to accept that the t-shirt had been sacrificed to the Sudanese laundry gods and I was never going to see it again.

So when I saw that shirt sitting on my bed, in the middle of a stack of someone else’s clothes, six months after it first disappeared… y’all, I cried. Because it’s been that kind of week. And sometimes it’s the little things. Or the XL ones.

­-Stephanie