The rainy day seems like a
good day for contemplation. I have been wanting to write this blog post for
some time, but I haven’t been able to put into words all the emotions that I am
feeling.
June 3rd marks
the end of the school year, and while I am ready to not worry about grading any
more papers. The end of the school will mean much more than no more grading.
China will be gone for me.
I’m not leaving, but the China I know will no longer exist. How can that be
possible? China has one the oldest histories of any civilization on the planet.
It isn’t just going to disappear. That’s true. The place will be exactly the
same.
BUT
We do not experience life in places; we experience
life in people. Places are
actually relatively unimportant. The only thing that gives places value or
meaning is the people who have been there or who are currently there. When we
stay in the same place but people do not, we might as well be moving because
the place will not be the same without those people. The place will have
changed because the people that we have experienced that place with will not be
there to continue to experience that place with us.
This is the most painful
aspect of the expat life.
Right now I am grieving
because I know that how I experience life here will never be the same. I want
to acknowledge that grief. I don’t want to put on a thick skin and say it’s all
ok. At the same time, I don’t want to wallow in that grief so much that I miss
out on opportunities with other people. My friend Val put it this way, “I don’t ever want to despise the
people right before me for not being someone else but instead figure out how to
tap into their own unique personhood.”
The truth is that I
am losing several friends who have played a significant role in my time here and in my spiritual and personal
growth. That is extremely painful.
It is also true that I
still do have wonderful friends who will be here next year. Another truth is I
came to China without friends, and the Father took care of me. He has put so
many people into my life to shape me into the person I am today, and he will
continue to do that.
The final truth is that I
won’t ever feel completely at home anywhere. I read a book at the beginning of
the school year called The Distant Land
of my Father by Bo Caldwell. The story is about an American expat girl who
is growing up in Shanghai just before WWII. Of course, life for her begins to
change as China is invaded. At this point in the book, she says, “My room
seemed a foreign place, but the only place I wanted to be. I closed the door
softly behind me. I turned out the light and got into bed. And then I lay in
the dark holding my stomach, trying to make it stop hurting, trying to
understand why I felt so homesick and alone in the only home I’d have ever
known.” That feeling of feeling homesick at “home” is very real right now.
I am homesick for a home
where I don’t have to say goodbye to friends. Where I won’t feel alone. Where I
won’t feel like a foreigner. Where I will always belong. Where I won’t have to
be separated from those I love. Where I will always feel at home.
I am homesick for a place
that I can’t see, yet I cling to the hope that it is being prepared for us.
