Yesterday I had the opportunity to go to Hundred Islands. It was amazing....super fun, and super exhausting. I went with the Chairman of our school, and the Korean group he has visiting here. It was amazing to see the aqua blue water. To hear the waves splashing along the shore, and to just be away from everything. While I was sitting on the beach I thought about the different boats and islands I have visited in all the places I have lived. I thought about the very first time that I road in a boat in another country. Cairo....riding down the Nile. How long ago that feels. No motor, just oars...pushing against the bottom of the river. I'm amazed at just how different life seems now. My first job, my first foreign country. If you had asked me then if I would be feeling the way I am now, I would have definitely thought that you were crazy. I never thought that I would be in the place I am right now. I never thought that I would be ready to settle in Missouri. I never thought I would be at a place where I was ready to just be part of the American dream.
My next boat ride....Thailand. I rode many different types of boats in Thailand. Boats up and down the river, boats down small riverways....boats among many different people groups. It was a very joyous time in my life. A time when I was defined by my job and by those around me. A time when I thought that I was living the dream. Doing what I could to share my faith of God. I will never forget seeing blue, sky blue water for the first time. It was amazing! I was in awe of the beauty. All I had seen before was California grey. Although very beautiful, it doesn't seem to compare. So much beauty...
Other boat rides have included Vietnam...and more recently the Philippines.
Yesterday as we came back from the island I had this overwhelming sense that this might be my very last boat road overseas. It wasn't a sad realization....it was more of a knowledge that was peaceful. It was a feeling that I needed to acknowledge. For the first time in my life, I was completely okay with not going on another boat trip. I was and am completely okay if I don't make it to Bali, or Italy. I have been able to see places and meet people that I would not otherwise have seen or met. I have been able to experience culture right in the midst of it. I have been able to ride boats in 5 different countries, and be allow the gentle movement of the waves to show me who I am now, and what I have to look forward to.
For the first time since leaving Cali this summer I am going to the BEACH! Hundred Islands, which is supposed to be amazingly beautiful. We leave at 5:30 AM. I wish it was the excitement that was keeping me awake, but I think it is more like the 5 hour nap I took from 5:00pm-10:00pm tonight. Whoops! Oh well. I am just super excited to be going to a beach! It is one of my favorite places to be...listening too the waves, and not having anything to do other than just be. I will be taking my kindle for some light reading, but hoping to take lots of pictures, and just enjoy creation!
I'm super excited that I am going to be back in Missouri in April. I am not even sure if I can hold back my enthusiasm for a place that I never thought I would be this excited to be going to.
I have thought about the last time I was going back to MO, and how I knew that it would just be a temporary time. I don't know how but my heart and my thoughts have completely changed. I no longer care to see the world. I no longer feel that I am being called to a life in another country. I long to just be back in Missouri. I long to find a job where I can be for the next 15-20 years or more. A place to settle down, have a family and get to experience life, being able to just live without the day to day feeling of not understanding the culture that I live in.
I am not saying that there won't be days when I just want to leave it all and head back overseas. I also do not think that I will always understand my life in America. But I want it. I want to live within driving distance of my family. I want to be able to just be me, and not live up to the expectation of perfection that I have been trying to live up to for the past 10 years or so.
So...I am coming back....first for a visit in April and then for good in June.
I'm excited and nervous...and hopeful.
The second day of 2014....I wish I could say that I did something amazing. I wish I could say that I had the time of my life, but I didn't. I did start out my day sleeping in and reading a book. I spent today thinking about all the things that I have done during my life, and what I still want to accomplish. I was thinking about patience. That's my word for the day. Patience is needed to figure out what my purpose in life is, what is life anyways? We each have our own moments, we each of our own thoughts. I wonder if I were to go back to my 9 year old self and ask questions about my life. I wonder if my dreams really have come true? Have I lived up to my name? Do I take risks?
I hope and pray that in the moments ahead I can take them one at a time. I hope that every moment I am able to be patient and not hope for the next. I want to live, and breathe. To be healthy and know at the end of my days that I did the best that I could. That I loved the best that I could, that I lived to change the world around me.
Is that teaching? I am not sure....but I will continue on, until I figure it out.
Today's moments were spent reading, writing, thinking, praying, and communicating. What will tomorrow's moments bring? Not sure yet, but I will live each one to its fullest!
I'm not really sure why it has taken me this long to realize that I have been a prisoner to my past. I have allowed my past to rule my heart, my head and my decisions. I started 2013 off in a very sad state. Mostly a result of decisions that I had made that affected someone else. But in the past few days I have had a chance to look at all the decisions that I made this year, to look at the person that I have become and decide that I don't want to be this person anymore.
For reasons that I won't got into, I have turned into a person that doesn't trust others. I mean I have always had a hard time with trust, but I think the past 5 years especially I have really just allowed those feelings to dictate every part of who I am and the things I do and say. I have always been a glass half empty kind of person, but not as much as I feel like I have been in the past 5 years. What happened to make me see the world in this light? What happened to allow me to not be true to the voice of reason that told me, yes people will hurt you, but you still must love?
I am not sure. Well actually I am quite sure, but once again I don't think it is something that needs to be addressed on a public blog.
What I do have to say is this. No more...I am not going to allow my past to dictate who I am today. I will allow it to shape me and mold me and allow me to see from other's viewpoints. I will not allow it to tear me down and allow me to be the insecure person that I am right at this moment.
So this year is for me. This year is a chance to step back and say, who do I want to be. How do I want to get back the parts of me that were stolen by people that I trusted. How do I want to make myself a better person so that I am someone that can be a good wife and mother one day. I want that. I don't want to be so emotionally messed up that I miss the opportunity, or that I am too blinded by my own insecurities that I allow someone to pass me by.
I am doing a word, a quote and a verse each day. I am going to be writing like crazy. I am going to be blogging everyday, in hopes that I can understand what this life holds for me. What is the purpose for me? I want to understand where I should be in this world, and who I should be with. Not just a mate, but friends, and community. Where do I fit in? How do I settle down and make my life count for something? I can't continue to hop from one place to the next forever.
These thoughts have never occurred to me. In fact until now I have been content with jumping from one place to the next. I have been content with the thought of living in a new country every few years. But I can say for the first time in my life...I want a place to settle. I want a place to truly belong, and I want people around me that will be there through the good and the bad. I want to have a home.
So for 2014...I have big ambitions. But I also know in my heart that there is a place for me. I know that there is a place that needs me, and I know there is a place where I can use my strengths and weaknesses to change my corner of the world.
I never thought that trying to convince 2nd graders that a stuffed elf was actually real would be so much fun. I am not outright lying to them, and honestly if they continue to just "pretend" to believe me I am okay with that too.
What struck me yesterday was the amount of joy that Elsa brought to our classroom. Just to have a fun game to play was enough. My students loved coming into the room and seeing where she was this morning. It was such a fun game to play. I am excited to see what these next few days have in store. Even if they don't believe...we will have fun pretending.
I feel like I haven't written a post in forever. I didn't do a very good job of keeping up with things that I am thankful for. Thanksgiving and the month of November feel like they are part of the distant past. I can't believe how quickly time is flying by.
I am thankful for that though. I am thankful that each day seems to go more quickly than the next. I am ready for the next stage of my life. As much as people are trying to tell me to just enjoy this single freedom that I have, and trust me I have enjoyed it...I think I am ready. I am ready to settle somewhere and be planted in a community. One that I enjoy, one that I can be happy to be a part of. One that I don't feel like is fake or lacking.
I don't know that I have really been able to connect anywhere for the past 5 years or so. I feel like since I went to Thailand I have been keeping the walls up pretty tight around me. Some things happened right before I left for Thailand, during my time in Thailand and right after that have caused me to feel like trust is never really possible.
I know that there are certain amounts of pain that are going to happen in this life. That is just part of it, but when I look around I feel like a lot of people have a more put together life than I do. I see their perfect classrooms, perfect families, and perfect bank accounts, and I wonder...how did I do it all wrong? How did I go from knowing exactly what I wanted from life, to feeling confused and unsure of what my hopes and dreams mean.
Maybe I have changed so much, that I can never go back to that 20 something year that thought it would be enough just to teach and live overseas. I don't think it is enough. I am not sure what will be enough, but I am done with this lifestyle. The nomadic kind of life. I am done reaching for straws and trying so hard to not make connections. I need a place to belong. I need a place to call home. I want a family of my own.
For now...I will press on and continue, but I'm hoping that somehow things can change...
