If I Could, I Would...

If I could, I would...

The deep sadness has hit me. The deep, gut wrenching, soul splitting sadness.

I am a woman. Therefore, I feel--sometimes with an insane intensity. It has only been in recent years that I've begun to accept the fact that my feelings don't always match my thoughts. For example, I despise crying (unless it's appropriate:death, injury, or sickness); but no matter how much I do not want to cry, there are times when my feelings are so forceful that my tears betray me.

My wise counselor has often expressed her concern for my tendency to discriminate against certain feelings. She has helped me to understand that all my feelings are a valid expression of my internal self. The best thing I can do is to acknowledge the truth of my feelings, even if it is uncomfortable, because by embracing these feelings, I can best gain whatever closure I may need to move forward.

I expect that some of my sadness is simply a recognition of the joy I've experienced over the past couple of years. The reason it hurts to leave is because my soul has become intimately connected to a few kindred spirits. My heart literally feels like it is a rubber band that has been stretched so far that it is on the verge of splitting.

But I would never trade this pain. It tells me how intensely I have loved. I would much rather love and meet pain from time to time than to not love at all. The hard part is trying to remind myself to take Dr. Seuss's advice: "Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened."

A natural pessimist, it takes a lot of purposeful energy for me to stay focused on the positive. I have to pointedly remind myself that this pain is not the end of all things good; it doesn't mean that all the beauty I've experienced is lost to me; I can trust in the love that my friendships are built on; and the world, no matter how deep and wide, is small enough for all of these precious relationships to continue.

This doesn't change the fact that if I could stay, I would; if I could pack up everyone and take them with me, I would; if I could make the world kinder to all of us, I would; if I could ease the hurt my friends are feeling in my absence, I would...

But the best I can do, is wish all the goodness and happiness I can for all of us. So with the words of a beautiful Irish blessing, here goes...

To all the people I love:

"May the road rise up to meet you, may the wind be ever at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face and the rain fall softly on your fields. And until we meet again, may God hold you in the hollow of his hand."

Moving Forward...

The last few months have been a whirlwind of emotions and decisions. But I've been doing some thinking, and ultimately, I've decided that I'm thankful for the past two years that I've spent in Chattanooga, even if they have been a struggle for survival.

A few months ago, after wallowing in an unusual amount of instability, I decided to start seeing a counselor again to help me stay grounded and to refocus. She recommended that I take some time to bring some closure to this chapter in my life. Admittedly, it is difficult for me to find a way to adequately symbolize the end of this remarkable experience. Maybe the problem is that I haven't learned the value of ritual or symbols. But tonight, I'm writing down all the things that have happened over the past two years that I'm thankful for, and I'm offering them up to God--the full and flowing River inside of my soul--in a sort of pseudo burnt sacrifice.

To simply say these things to God doesn't seem like it would be enough. I'd probably fall asleep trying to do so. I want to remember this stepping stone in life...a time when I feel like I'm coming out of a cocoon and learning how to fly. Maybe it is this moment of vulnerable but hopeful change that is so important to remember. Maybe this is what my counselor means by commemorating my time here with a sense of closure.

So here is my list of things I'm emphatically thankful for:

-Losing over 40lbs in fat and gaining 10 in muscle.
-Exceeding my own fitness goals and setting many new ones.
-Learning skills that enabled me to be a successful personal trainer.
-Watching clients exceed some of their wildest expectations.
-Discovering the value of money when it comes to building a future life, family, and marriage.
-Rebuilding and deepening my relationship with my oldest, best friend.
-Loving every moment of being an Auntie to my best friend's daughter.
-Delighting in holding my best friend's infant son just hours after his birth, and marveling at the gorgeous life she's brought into the world.
-Successfully teaching basic writing to college students.
-Discovering that my passion is in fitness.
-Finding out how much I love my brothers.
-Making some new friends with whom I'm sure I'll share future adventures.
-Learning that friendships and family relationships can, and do, surpass time and space.
-Learning that no matter how bad things get, there is always a possibility.
-Remembering how strongly I am bound to God, how deeply that River is embedded inside of me, and eager to drink deeply of the water that will keep me from ever thirsting again.
-Knowing that the decision I'm making to go to Korea is a proactive step towards a better future, a husband, and my future children.
-A world full of adventure and possibility.
-Remembering how to hope without everything being sucked dry by fear.
-Choosing to see beauty for ashes.

Maybe what I'm burning tonight symbolizes my desire to cling to hope--for all my hope is built on everything that I'm thankful for.

The Question

As young children, we all begin to ask one of the most fundamentally important questions of all time--Why?

Everything has a "why"--a question, opportunity, answer, or reason. And if you believe that we're all part of a much bigger puzzle, then each of our itty-bitty pieces matter because the picture is incomplete without every single piece in it.

This is the reason for our questions--why we must ask "why". We cannot fit into our place until we know why we're there.

Some people were born lucky enough to somehow be convicted of their purpose and some of us spend decades searching for it. Sometimes Fate works in our favor, but then sometimes she deals a cruel hand. When that happens, it feels as if Fate toys with us--dangling dreams and passions just beyond our reach.

I'm not a fan of Fate. She eats up the freedom to choose.

Maybe the belief that I am entitled to live my dreams is my hubris. Maybe that is my real problem, and maybe that's why Fate is harsh with me. Maybe I must learn to accept rather than to dream. Maybe I must learn to do instead of hope. Maybe I must learn to survive rather than soar. Maybe I must learn to stop fighting Fate.

Maybe I must allow myself to be broken so I can rise above.

I was raised in a faith that taught that Heaven is the perfect answer to Earth's travesty--that all things wrong here would be corrected there. Yet this doesn't entirely make sense to me. That continuous belief in a hereafter that fixes everything tends to cause people to forget about the possibilities for healing and correction that are at our very fingertips. I want to live here and now, to breath it all in, and to know that I matter here. To matter only in Heaven isn't enough.

It is a bitter thing to sit in an invisible prison where the unforeseen potential is being held hostage to circumstances.

Where do we go when education can't save us, our families can't help us, intelligence is not enough, skills can't provide food or shelter, our prayers refuse to formulate, desires are snuffed out by necessity...

Where do we go when we don't know why???

Not My Home...

I've never liked being alone much, mainly because I don't like the unsettling thoughts I'm forced to confront when there is nothing around to distract me.

Part way through my second glass of Pinot Grigio, alone in my apartment, I'm mildly surprised by my intense sense that I'm a stranger here.

I've often been asked where I come from, or where my hometown is, but I've never really known what to say. Growing up, my family moved a lot, so I never felt like I'd set roots down anywhere. When I was traveling overseas, I said Hong Kong was home. However, to my students in Hong Kong, Chattanooga, TN was my home, and now that I'm back in the city where I've lived longer than any other place, I still feel as though I don't belong.

Why do I feel like this? I've got good friends here, I've even got some people I'd consider to be wise mentors available to help me. I've got a decent roommate, a decent apartment, I manage to make rent and buy groceries every month, I'm blessed to be an auntie to my best friend's precious little girl, I have an adopted brother who aggressively but sincerely looks out for my best interests...

Yet somehow, all of this doesn't seem to outweigh the insecurity I feel in my jobs, the fact that I'm steeped in debt, the lack of opportunity that I feel I have to seize adventures, the doubts I have about who I am, my faith, my destiny, my future...

Disappointment is a bitter, corrosive poison. I feel like my heart is eating itself alive.

I'm sure all of this is far more deep seated than even I can comprehend, but maybe much of it has to do with how I've struggled to readjust to life in the U.S. after my return from living abroad in Hong Kong for two years. When I left the U.S., I was eager to see a new world, to bury myself in new ideas, cultures, tastes, smells, sights...I was addicted to the journey. But I was alone. And the more I learned about new people and places, the more I questioned where I'd come from, who I was, what I believed in, and where I was going.

By the time I returned to the U.S., I was a different person. People who had known me for years felt like they'd lost their connection with me. The way I saw politics, religion, and relationships had fundamentally changed, causing shifts in my nature that I still haven't been able to get a good handle on.

I can understand why people run...why the move from place to place, hoping that somewhere along the way they'll find that magical connection that makes enough of the pieces fall into place. Ever since I've returned to the U.S., I've had a terrific aching wanderlust. Maybe I feel like I need to explore to help me learn and figure things out.

I'm so jealous of Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat Pray Love. I wish I could take the time like she did to center and rediscover myself. When the film version of the book came out, I salivated over it...I truly covet the chance she had to be able to learn, seek, and heal in such a tangible, all-in, honest-to-heart way.

And this is when realism kicks in, and I wonder if I even have a right to hope for such opportunities; for most people never even get to imagine such chances, much less live them.

This is when I try to remind myself, that while I question my faith, I can still trust in a caring God. I can still find comfort in the fact that Jesus understands restlessness, insecurity, loneliness, disappointment, and heart break. And somehow, because of this, I will have better chances, no matter how unrealistic that may seem. And somewhere, the mothering heart of God wants me to be happy.

A refrain from an old hymn I grew up hearing in church is playing over and over in my brain: "This world is not my home I'm just passing through. . .and I can't feel at home in this world anymore". I know that many people are comforted by the belief that someday they can go to Heaven and escape all the disappointment here. But I want to be at home here, to be at peace, to find a meaningful place, to matter to someone, to see God and beauty here. I don't want to be blinded by all this sadness anymore.

Karma

One thing about life that you can count on is that it happens in cycles...at least that's what I've been told. Some cycles repeat more often than others so you can have the opportunity to make a better or different decision than the one you made the previous time around. In a sense, it's a form or reincarnation. And as a whole, it's a process I don't enjoy much even though I can appreciate its necessity

I may be quick to ask questions, but I'm slow to make big decisions.

So here I am again, on the precipice of decision, only this visit feels more crucial than any of the previous visits. I have tried and tested so many of my available options, that I fear the only thing left for me to do is totally reinvent myself, again!!!!

How exhausting!

I sound unhappy don't I? It's not so much unhappiness as it is disappointment. I used to place a huge stock in my hopes and dreams for my future. I had a jar full of beautiful chrysalises just itching to hatch, but time has aged them, and only a miracle could make butterflies of those worms now.

Contrary to how it may seem, I haven't given up on all my hopes. However, I am reluctant to expect to see them come to fruition. I'm not sure if this is damaging or just an honest resignation to the facts of reality.

There was a time when I thought what I'd expected of life was simple, and surely, because I wasn't demanding to walk on the moon or that I win the lottery, it would just fall into place for me so long as I made the right decisions. But life is a sum of peoples' decisions, not just my own. So somewhere, there is a chain link of decisions that keeps me from fully awakening into my own glory. I want to break that chain link. I want to own my own destiny. I want to take this miserable swamp I'm in and find a way through it.

According to the Chinese zodiac, I am a Boar. On a whole, the Chinese description of a Boar's traits accurately reflect me. One of the characteristics of a Boar is a high expectation of others. I'm coming to grips with the fact that I truly do expect too much of people. I tend to think that because I give people the benefit of the doubt, try to be honest, value integrity, work to maintain appropriate responsibility, seek to be a team player, and wish good things for people, that people will respect me and know that my heart desires peace. But it is wrong to expect people to treat you as a person of value and truth when there are too many humans who fall short of this expectation. It is also wrong to blame someone for their suspicious nature when they are only trying to protect themselves. How is anyone to truly know someone's inner nature? This world doesn't appreciate vulnerability and thrives on those who wear heavy protective armor.

While I may have always understood this logically, I have not behaved this way emotionally. (Sometimes my emotions and my intellect have an incredibly vast disconnect.) But my hopes, my heart, and my dreams have been trampled on and fear has created a shy bitterness in me. I am reluctant to distrust the people around me, but I have also learned that no one will take care of me except for myself, and there is some value in developing some survival instincts. Yet, I desperately hope that I do not lose all of my ability and desire to seek out and trust the good that is in the world.

Some people tell me that God is the only thing that can be trusted, and I expect that is true when it comes down to having someone who always keeps your best interest in mind. But I sincerely hope that there are more entities that can be trusted besides God. I'm not much good at having faith in the invisible and would like very much to believe that we are not all lost.

But maybe when it all boils down, God is all that's worth trusting. King Solomon, who asked God for wisdom when he could've asked for anything else in the world, wrote these words: "Trust in the LORD with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him,and He will make your paths straight" (Proverbs 3:5-6 NASB).

Maybe my real problem is that I'm not trusting the right source.
And so the cycle continues...

A Valentine's Day Gift

It's been a long time since I took the time to sit down and write. I think maybe I've been boycotting myself--I have such a strong tendency to spill the truth, and maybe I just haven't wanted to face it.

However, almost a year since my last post, I've begun to feel like I've been cheating myself out of an opportunity to simply share. And so here I am again, daring to express my latest thoughts in print.

I question everything; in the process of making myself insane with questions, I keep myself sane. It's an oxymoron, I know, but in order to be confident in a nugget of truth, I am compelled to challenge it until I'm sure that nugget is worthy of helping to build a foundation that will contribute to my ever fluctuating worldview.

Yesterday, God gave me a gift. A nugget of truth.

Regardless of what name I might use for God, or how I manage to connect to him, God fundamentally is Love. In fact, the two are interchangeable--I suspect that one cannot be without the other.

No matter how common this little nugget of truth may be, it is still strong and beautiful.

There was a time in my life when I thought I was incapable of comprehending love. I truly feared that my heart was handicapped. But God gave me the profound gift of mentors and kindred spirits, during my university years, who taught me what love is. And slowly, as the love from those people began to penetrate into my heart, I learned that love is warm, healing, uplifting, and well-wishing. I learned that there is no better thing in the world than feeling completely loved and having the freedom to return that love.

For various reasons, time and location has eroded the confidence I once had in the expressions of love. As this confidence turned into disappointment and then faded into my subconscious, I began to forget what it was like to engage oneself with the acts of love.

This past weekend, I was reminded that love is a colorful character. I saw love in the delightful squeals of my dear friend's toddler on her 2nd birthday, in hugs and assurances of love from my second family on one of their rare visits from overseas, in warm care expressed in the eyes of my oldest friend, in the surprise visit from my soul-mate who felt that a heart-to-heart was long overdue, in the generous hugs from all my brothers, in the kiss of a lover--in all its forms, love washed over me.

I cannot articulate it appropriately, but the glow of love is a safe haven, and it is this utter contentment that makes me believe in God. Such goodness couldn't possibly be invented or imagined by a human. Nothing as flawed as we are could've made something so flawlessly and simultaneously powerful and intimate.

On the eve of Valentine's Day, I want to remember that no little box of chocolates or bouquet of roses could come remotely close to representing the love I've been blessed to experience. Nothing could compare to the following words that the Lover of My Soul speaks to me:

"Do not be afraid, for I have ransomed you. I have called you by name; you are mine. When you go through deep waters,I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown. When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you... Others were given in exchange for you. I traded their lives for yours because you are precious to me. You are honored, and I love you. Do not be afraid for I am with you". (Isaiah 43:1-5 NLT)

"There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear". (1 John 4:18 NKJV)

Love is a precious gift, a golden nugget that must be treasured.




Thank-you God for loving me and giving me the gift of people who happily love me and let me return that love.