staying put

Usually, I like change. I can move from one place to the other quite easily and just accept the fact that things are the way they are. I adapt and change as necessary.

Usually is the operative word here.

Lately, I've balked at the change. Really, just hated it. I didn't realize I was doing that and didn't really understand why I was acting a certain way toward certain events.

Interviewing a friend from school, a missionary kid from Africa, I really took to heart one thing she shared. She said that the shift from life in Africa to life in America was difficult but fun for the first six months. From six months to a year, she pretty much wanted out. Just got tired of it. It took her two years to realize the life that she was living in America, in Spokane, was the life she had and to really be happy and really be excited about that.

I think that a little bit of that is what I've been thinking over. Because this is my life. I'm in Spokane and Spokane is the place I'm supposed to be. In one sense, that means my old life in South Carolina is dying. It's "home" to me but I'm only there for about three or four months each year. I don't live there. I live here. And "home" to me isn't going to be the way it once was.

Just being honest, it's kind of hard right now. Not in a will-you-feel-bad-for-me kind of way, but it's difficult to just sort things out. This seems different from culture shock to a different country, because it's the same country. It's so much the same, yet so completely different. Different scenery, friends, church, weather... and I do like it. I don't have to shake off those old memories, friends or things in my life that have been so familiar, but they're in figurative moving boxes, while I rearrange my mind.

Funny to have an adjustment like that when it's been a year and a half. I guess it's part of the process.

* the picture is of a summer meal at Granddaddy and Grandmamma's. mmm... shrimp!