I don't know what it is about them, but I have a thing about rooftops. They're where I've fallen in love, where I've met my best friend, and where I've had my heart broken into a million pieces. Some of my best memories are on rooftops. Like that one time Marc and I had a late night dance party on a rooftop in Haiti... or having "cocktails with the girls" on the roof of a boat in Ha Long Bay... or participating in an impromptu photo shoot on the roof of my friend's apartment in Hong Kong... or standing on the rooftop in rural Haiti watching our only exit out of town burning in a bridge fire fueled by tires...
I find refuge on rooftops. It's where I can go to be alone and sip my coffee first thing in the morning, do some yoga or other "jailhouse"-style workout when I'm on deployment, or just listen to music, reflect, and take in the beauty of my surroundings. It's a place I can escape to and pretend like I've got my life together, even though it may be falling apart beneath me.
....which is why I find it hard to believe that it's taken me 8 weeks to get up to roof of my building.
I've been trying my best to hold down the fort while my manager is gone but I'm feeling like everything is teterring on the edge right now and I can't see what's going on below me - my efforts are either reinforcing the wall, or they're going to result in the whole castle crumbling down around me.
This is what led me to discover our rooftop. I needed to escape the building stress and just take a minute to look at things from a different perspective....Plus without power and AC, I figured that if I was going to continue sitting in the heat anyways, it may as well be by sitting in the sun, rebelling in a tank top.
I've spent a good amount of time up on the rooftop these last few days. It's so refreshing to be alone and take time to reflect on what I'm doing, or have done, or to just sit and let my mind be quiet. It's easy to get caught up in the chaos of our world down below. It's amazing how quickly 12-14 hour days can pass, how long to-do lists can become, how many struggles there are to deal with - both here and abroad, and how easy it is to get caught up in the little details and forget about the bigger picture.
I wrote the above last weekend... and was so overwhelmed with the amount of work I had, that I never got a chance to post it. But it all still holds true. Except now that my manager is back, and I'm no longer the "boss lady", I can now enjoy the rooftop on a whole other level. For example, yesterday I had lunch up on the roof with a couple co-workers and had a long discussion about the purpose of life... last weekend I spent my Thursday night at a rooftop dance party... and today I spent my afternoon up there planning my upcoming R&R - which is something that's hard to believe. It definitely doesn't feel like it's time for my first R&R yet.
But back to the rooftop dance party I was at last weekend. We were out at our normal Thursday night venue when someone came by to spread the word that there was a party going on up on the roof. Well, this was something new and interesting, so naturally we had to go check it out. And let me tell you, trading in the smokey, packed little room that we normally hang out in, for a breezy, rooftop venue (with hanging party lights!!) was a no brainer. There was even a heli-pad we could chill on while taking in some city views. Dancing the night away to random African and Latin beats, on a rooftop in Bangladesh, with some awesome people has definitely made my list of best rooftop memories.
See... I have a thing about rooftops....
...which is why there's a rooftop infinity pool at my first R&R location :)
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