Vacation

Not going to lie, while living in China it's hard to remember what living “real life” is like. By “real life”, I mean life in America, the days in college where it was easy to order a pizza or hop in the car to go pick up some Micky D’s (or even ground beef for that matter). We’ve hit a wall in China where everything is surreal. Yes, we’ve been living here for 5 months. We’ve been doing this for quite some time, now we’re really doing it. We’re about to spend the holidays away form our families. We’ve finished teaching an entire semester of college. What the…?

Despite the packing limitations I was able to squeeze in the journal from my senior year of college. {yes, I’m a girl, I journal…quite frequently} At the time I thought “it would be wise to bring this in case I lose sight of why I’m in China. This journal tells the awesome story and clearly shows all the intricate pieces of my going, my journey." This is absolute truth.  Recently when pouring through my own written words I was astounded by the details, the foreshadowing, the beautiful flow of how everything perfectly came together {it must have been by some Majestic Design or something}. What I didn’t realize at the time is that it would also serve as a reminder to many a forgotten memory, some sad, some difficult, but many wonderful and unfortunately misplaced in the intricacies of my brain. They serve as a reminder of the life that I have lived; that life is a crucial part of who I am. Over the course of these past 5 months, that life that I have lived has been all too easily forgotten.

Luckily for me, I’m brilliant.

There was a time last January where I compiled a list of the “Top 10 Memories of 2010”. At the time, I had thought that these would be memories that would forever stick and freely flow out of me. As I looked upon the list the other night, I found great joy and rediscovery in all of them as they had [unfortunately] been forgotten.

My team and I are about to embark on a several week vacation together, but before we do so I think that I need to take a vacation of my own…a vacation from China, a vacation from analyzing and absorbing everything around me and spending time to reflect on where I was, who that was, and take joy in the memories and moments that were created then. I have been so absorbed in life here as every day is a new lesson or eye-opening experience, the learning curve is exponential. I need a vacation.

Throughout the next several days I hope to share these stories, these pieces of life to be elaborated by words. It’s like digging through your closet and finding an entirely new outfit you forgot you owned… you know that feeling, right?

…it’s just a metaphor.

..I’m such a girl.