Turning 21

So I turned 21 last week...and though being a year older doesn't really feel different, except for welcoming in the year with a few sips from a glass of wine, some changes are becoming evident...some that have been forming over a long period of time, and others that have just recently come to pass...

Today I got to spend the day with a precious friend from a part of my life that seems in the past...reconnecting with her and realizing that we were never really apart has brought up thoughts and feelings I didn't expect.


I left my life of 8 years in Asia to return to America, my "home" country to attend college 2 years ago. What feels like just yesterday and yet so long ago is no longer a "current" part of my life, if you will...while my life and experiences overseas are an amazing part of my past, such a part of making me who I am, and will definately be a part of my future, I'm now having to make a life where I am at the moment...And we MKs or TCKs do this well...we are so used to goodbyes and moving that setting up in a new place is sad at first, but when we make a choice to settle in it isn't really that hard. But there is such a challenge in finding the balance between forgetting the place behind in order to dive into where you are... but not losing the past alltogether


I see my friends a few years behind me as they return to America and struggle to find that balance and I remember when I first came back to the States, I never thought I'd find it...I remember being thought strange by my potluck roommates, or people I tried to talk to, whenever I mentioned growing up overseas or tried to tell a story of my life on the farm in Bangladesh, or of a story in the market in Thailand...and so at first I just thought I couldn't talk about that part of my life at all, and since I didn't have any friends nearby from my past to reminisce with, I hid the joy, memories, wounds and scars from the part of life I was leaving behind and I tried to set it aside to just see what color the chameleon in me needed to become to fit in here...


But some of the things that left scabs and scars, namely family members still in Thailand, did not allow me to ignore it alltogether...which made it harder because every time I'd want to think about that part of my life, what I will call the Asia years, it hurt to remember...and when I wanted to remember with joy, all I could see was pain. I never thought that would change...But time has a way of healing things and bringing changes so softly that we don't even notice...God has always been working in my life, but in the first year I was back in America, His workings seemed hidden from me...


But now I see pieces of a puzzle when I look back and am amazed at how He is bringing things together and bringing some things back from the past to be a part of my life now, while healing others...a little over a year ago, I found an apartment and roommates by what I woud call a "freak coincidence" if I actually believed in coincidence...but God guided me to roommates who share my experiences - a military brat from Japan and a Korean international student...my only question was "do you have a rice cooker - where do I sign?" The embracing of my life in asia as a normal part of our home life has been so amazing. I'm now in a situation where it is comfortable and not out of the ordinary when I make a comment about another place and time, in another country, or even in another language! It has made it so that I'm able to make friends with "normal americans" and not have to bring up this part of me all the time - though all of my friends know that I did NOT grow up in this country, which partly helps to diffuse the strange looks when my lack of cultural knowledge becomes painfully obvious :D I'm now slowly able to find my way to being "me" and accepting my past, as well as my present, and showing people different sides of me when the opportunity arises :).

So as I sit here and let it sink in that I am finally 21 years old, I wonder what that means...I know it means I'm officially "an adult", but what does THAT mean? I look back at my life and am just amazed...to realize that I had NO IDEA where life would go, but when I see all of my experiences and the people that have been so special to me, I can't believe all this has fit into 21 years. I think that part of being an adult is realizing how much we don't know - and I'm learning every day that though I'm learning from books in class, there is so much left to learn...about life, about people, about God...about how to handle situations that arise from day to day, and how to come out a stronger individual for it...and I know I'm still young in so many ways...I cannot help but be overwhelemed with a feeling of gratitude at how God has guided me through the major valleys in the road behind me, and how He has drawn me closer to Him and given me such a rich life...

And as a birthday present this year, He has brought me something that makes my life even richer - an amazing guy in the form of my best guy friend of the past 6-8 months who is now more than a friend to me. I look forward to learning and growing together as we continue down the path God has, and find out where it goes...

I'm not sure there is a deep conclusion to this post...or at least not one that comes in words...I feel that as I take a snapshot of the past and look back, I'm happy. Though that sounds simple, there have been quite a few times that I did not know if I would ever look back at my life and say that...but what I have found is that through all the changes, some things do stay the same...in all my times of moving countries I found that true friendships do not disappear though their faces may fall out of your daily life...the lifelong friends are always there, around the world, and you are still connected...After going through my worst nightmare in real life, and realizing that the ONE thing I never thought could happen to me and my family was indeed happening, I found that my faith is founded on much more than good circumstances or an easy life. I found that at the core of my being, when all else was stripped away and I didn't know why I believed anything at all, my connection to my Rescuer was stronger than ever. I found that my fears could disappear when I truly knew that I was resting in the arms of my God, and had found through experience that He catches me when I'm free falling.

When I came to college and began to face the world on my own, a few baby steps at a time, I found that who I am is still being shaped, but my core values and my heart passions come through even stronger, and I've found a love of dance and a passion for it as my form of expression and worship.

So now I find that I'm 21...I find that as I look around I'm more stable than I've been at times, and I see that quite a few things are changing still, but I see the things that I know remain constant...and so I'm looking forward to the changes...*shrug*...so this is how it feels to be 21...the wine tastes funny...