Please, no more packing. Please.
Amen.
Friday, August 13, 2010
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
cookies, milk and feet of many kinds
It's after midnight curfew on the second to last night at camp and I've snuck down to the staff lounge to type this about how I'm feeling right now.
Most of the time, when campers get homesick, they're fine during the day running around, playing games, getting dirty and eating carrot sticks, but at nighttime it just comes over them like a wave and it's all they can feel. Right now, it is nighttime and with every fiber of my little body
I do not want to go to China.
I do not. I do not know the language, no one knows me there, I will not be at my best friend's wedding in September, it will be cold, I will not be able to order coffee drinks in English, I won't be in college anymore, I won't be able to read anything, there will not be people who look like me, I will be Different from everyone else, I will not bake at Christmas with my mom, there won't be the waves of the Pacific Ocean on toasted sand, there won't be Friday mornings in the chapel at Pepperdine, I won't get in my car and drive up PCH late at night until I feel alive and safe, and I won't make a u-turn at Leo Carillo State Beach and go back to school and crawl warm and softly into my bed there, or even my bed in Murrieta, each place with several kinds of family within arm's reach.
I just feel like I want to turn around and run in the opposite direction, even though this is what I've been running towards for months. This is what cold feet feels like.
The two and a half days at home after camp and before I leave already feel too short, like they've already happened and I saw no one, hugged no one, packed nothing and forgot to eat good dirty greasy Mexican food before I got on a place to a place where nothing is famliar and nothing is home.
When this thing happens and I feel like this (and it's only been like twice, so don't think that this is a definite indication of what I may or may not do with my $730 one-way ticket to Harbin, or my entire attitude about these plans I have or my future job or teaching or life) there's just so much resistance inside. The resistance of not wanting to leave, of wanting to stay in my college community, with my family, with the wonderful people I've met and been working with this summer, in California, which I love more than I had previously thought; and then the resistance of knowing how I cannot take this feeling with me to China and don't even want to.
The part of me that is fighting against the empty homesick part I can already tell is the strong growing woman part that I already think will last through the year. Or she'll come out pretty often, in any case.
So, cold/beautiful/dirty feet, we're taking this one step at a time. We don't want to go right now, but there are days before that happens. In the meantime, we're going to stop typing (I am not typing with my feet, for clarification), go to bed and stop breaking curfew (Mossi, if you ever read this I'm sorry for not being asleep right now).
And I'll spend the rest of tonight, if I don't sleep, resisting resistance, asking Someone for grace and peace, Thinking and being thankful that I have many wonderful things here in this place to come home to in a year. Whatever home is.
At the end of it, though, is somewhere inside me I do want to go. I have a ticket, and in five days, I'm using it and I'm going.
Most of the time, when campers get homesick, they're fine during the day running around, playing games, getting dirty and eating carrot sticks, but at nighttime it just comes over them like a wave and it's all they can feel. Right now, it is nighttime and with every fiber of my little body
I do not want to go to China.
I do not. I do not know the language, no one knows me there, I will not be at my best friend's wedding in September, it will be cold, I will not be able to order coffee drinks in English, I won't be in college anymore, I won't be able to read anything, there will not be people who look like me, I will be Different from everyone else, I will not bake at Christmas with my mom, there won't be the waves of the Pacific Ocean on toasted sand, there won't be Friday mornings in the chapel at Pepperdine, I won't get in my car and drive up PCH late at night until I feel alive and safe, and I won't make a u-turn at Leo Carillo State Beach and go back to school and crawl warm and softly into my bed there, or even my bed in Murrieta, each place with several kinds of family within arm's reach.
I just feel like I want to turn around and run in the opposite direction, even though this is what I've been running towards for months. This is what cold feet feels like.
The two and a half days at home after camp and before I leave already feel too short, like they've already happened and I saw no one, hugged no one, packed nothing and forgot to eat good dirty greasy Mexican food before I got on a place to a place where nothing is famliar and nothing is home.
When this thing happens and I feel like this (and it's only been like twice, so don't think that this is a definite indication of what I may or may not do with my $730 one-way ticket to Harbin, or my entire attitude about these plans I have or my future job or teaching or life) there's just so much resistance inside. The resistance of not wanting to leave, of wanting to stay in my college community, with my family, with the wonderful people I've met and been working with this summer, in California, which I love more than I had previously thought; and then the resistance of knowing how I cannot take this feeling with me to China and don't even want to.
The part of me that is fighting against the empty homesick part I can already tell is the strong growing woman part that I already think will last through the year. Or she'll come out pretty often, in any case.
So, cold/beautiful/dirty feet, we're taking this one step at a time. We don't want to go right now, but there are days before that happens. In the meantime, we're going to stop typing (I am not typing with my feet, for clarification), go to bed and stop breaking curfew (Mossi, if you ever read this I'm sorry for not being asleep right now).
And I'll spend the rest of tonight, if I don't sleep, resisting resistance, asking Someone for grace and peace, Thinking and being thankful that I have many wonderful things here in this place to come home to in a year. Whatever home is.
At the end of it, though, is somewhere inside me I do want to go. I have a ticket, and in five days, I'm using it and I'm going.
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