Homebody

When life moves you around a lot, it's easy to get confused. Don't get me wrong, I know exactly what I want and where I want to be. But it's not what I would've initially expected.

This winter, I traveled from Yokosuka, Japan to Yokota. Then it was back to Yokosuka and on to Tokyo to fly from Narita International Airport to Minneapolis/St. Paul via Guangzhou, China and LAX. The next five weeks were a refreshing whirlwind - seeing family, catching up with long-time friends, enjoying holidays - and it's clear that Minnesota is my home. During that time, I bounced back and forth between there and my other familiar and alma mater town, Madison, WI, for a friend's wedding festivities. We are now in the middle of a 4-week stint in Dahlgren, Virginia. Minnesota was a fantastic time, and I was filled to the brim by people I can't wait to live life with again. Someday.

But I miss Japan.

I miss the culture. I miss the tight spaces. I miss some of the little things. I somehow even miss being a minority. It sobers you. I miss the trains, and I miss the convenient stores. I miss my neighborhood, though I can communicate with only one of my neighbors. I miss the way it feels. I miss taking out trash every day. I miss biking everywhere. I miss our tiny little house and our ornery cat. He's bothering someone else for now.

I guess what I'm saying is that Japan is truly home now. But just for now. And you know, that feels nice. To know we are able to make home where we are. And to actually feel pain for not being there, though it's not Minnesota. How strange, that a place 8000 miles from our hometown with a culture so vastly different from the one we were brought up in, can make us fall in love with it.

Lessons from C.S.

My husband is a hero. Back in June, my dearly beloved MacBook crashed, taking all of my precious documents with it. I'm not exactly tech savvy, to the point where I don't even understand all the possibilities. But Curtis came to my rescue without me asking and had my hard drive taken out and cased. My various documents are now all converted to iTunes and ready for upload on my iPad.

Lord knows I love that man.

One of my rediscovered documents was Chapter 6 from C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity on the topic of marriage. Guh, it is so good! I keep it as a reminder of the bigger picture, of who we are in marriage and the beauty of how it was designed and is orchestrated. It is refreshing to read something this wholesome when I am too often reminded of some of the modern-day views of marriage. To me, many are incomplete and superficial.

Here are my favorite quotes from C.S.:

The Christian law is not forcing upon the passion of love something which is foreign to that passion’s own nature: it is demanding that lovers should take seriously something which their passion itself impels them to do. And, of course, the promise, made when I am in love and because I am in love, to be true to the beloved as long as I live, commits me to being true even if I cease to be in love. A promise must be about things that I can do, about actions: no one can promise to go on feeling in a certain way. He might as well promise never to have a headache or always to feel hungry.

Being in love is a good thing, but it is not the best thing. There are many things below it, but there are also things above it. You cannot make it the basis of a whole life. It is a noble feeling, but it is still a feeling. Now no feeling can be relied on to last in its full intensity, or even to last at all. Knowledge can last, principles can last, habits can last; but feelings come and go.

But, of course, ceasing to be ‘in love’ need not mean ceasing to love. Love in this second sense - love as distinct from ‘being in love’ - is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by (in Christian marriages) the grace which both partners ask, and receive, from God.

‘Being in love’ first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep the promise. It is on this love that the engine of marriage is run: being in love was the explosion that started it.

[on the longevity of being in love] This is, I think, one little part of what Christ meant by saying that a thing will not really live unless it first dies. It is simply no good trying to keep any thrill: that is the very worst thing you can do. Let the thrill go - let it die away - go on through that period of death into the quieter interest and happiness that follow - and you will find you are living in a world of new thrills all the time.

What Am I Doing Here?

I know exactly what I want to do when I grow up.  Yes, as a 25-year-old, I still have some growing to do.  I thought this clarity would be freeing, and it often is.  Whenever I am tempted to compare myself to someone else and their professional path, I can easily go back to thoughts on what's mine.  It's then that I realize that there's nothing to compare, since I don't want their professional path anyway.  

But there is still so much struggle.  How to get there.  How to make my time count towards it when I live overseas.  How our future kids may factor in.  I'm in the lull.  I'm not even sure I should call it a lull because the preparation matters too.  The balance between waiting and reflecting and searching and constructing and acting is difficult to find.  Should I always act and think later?  What are the actions?  There's no particular right set of stepping stones, but I still long for some guidance.  That's the thing, it's all on me.  Even when others offer advice, I am unsettled.  Because I need to start.  Or keep going.  The process needs to be mine first.  

Sometimes I long for convention.  I want to give up and find a normal job and live a normal life.  Just to find stability or feel like I'm an adult.  But then I say that out loud and want to slap myself.  

So here I am.  Living in the process.  Finding some sort of way, and feeling like a late bloomer.  Frustrated and frantic at times.  But full of peace and yearning in others.  Impatient with myself, but glad to be on an unorthodox and organic path.

Cheers.

Between the idea

And the reality

Between the motion

And the act

Falls the shadow

(T.S. Eliot The Hollow Men)