To Love.

I know of only one duty, and that is to love.

-Albert Camus

It's incredible, the healing power of love...sometimes more for the lover than the loved.  When we choose to deeply, intentionally, and wholly love someone else, the effects are truly life-giving.

That is all.

A Post About Home.

I am home from India.  Actually, I have been home for nearly 9 days and this seemed to be the soonest I was ready to post something real about just that, being home.

Spending 6 months in a foreign country as a volunteer/missionary was hard.  Hard probably is the understatement of the year and doesn't really begin to cover the depth of the experience.  Though I say "hard" I don't mean to leave a negative connotation hanging in the air to be misinterpreted.  It was also very good.

And, now I'm home.  Though depending on the timing of my life I have used many different factors to determine what "home" actually is, at this point it is where my family is.  I don't feel I have any other home at the moment, I suppose that is the nature of residing within a season of transition.  It's good to be home...and it's also vulnerable.  Home isn't only where your heart is, it's also where your heart is laid bare and suddenly you are the truest form of yourself.  And that can be scary.

When I was in India, I had many moments in which I wanted nothing more than to be home...meaning back in the States, near my family, and surrounded by all the things I deemed as comfortable.  Now I am here and feel more than a little disillusioned by it all.  I am working hard to give myself extra grace during my time of reverse culture shock but I can't help but feel at moments that I wish I were back.  This is probably a textbook case of the Grass is Always Greener mentality, as I was relieved and ready to leave India when I did.  It's just that I wish I had done more, been more, seen more, stretched myself even further.  I'm not one to sit long in the cesspool of regret so I won't allow myself to live behind today.  I will however, continue to live becoming better equipped by what I have gone through.

It's bizarre how much I am willing to stay inside my head and process what's just taken place in my life...considering I have had a difficult time doing the simplest of tasks lately like choosing clothes to wear or grocery shopping.  Having to make any decision at all feels a little unnatural and overwhelming.  I have only to give myself time to readjust and relearn what I already know so well...it's just getting my heart and emotions to follow suit that is the challenge.

In less words, I am happy to be home.  Every day is presenting me with something new to test my patience and my resistance.  I am glad to have a close source of hope and a loving family by my side.  Thank you to all who supported me during my time away.  This life is nothing without people to share your trials and happiness with.

Today?

Today, I am thankful.

Today, I am scared.

Today, my insides ache.

Today, I am appreciating old friends while yearning to strengthen relationships with new ones.

Today, I am missing India, even though I didn't think I would.

Today, I am grappling with making an old life new and placing a new life behind me...yet I can't make sense of anything, old or new.

Today, I am overwhelmed at the familiar and underwhelmed at the expected.

Today, I seem to know what I want yet can't figure out how to get there.

Today, I feel a little lost, a little tired, a little disoriented, a little hopeful.

Dear India...

Dear India,

It is 5:20 am and I have been faced with the choice to either sleep for an hour or blog...that's right, I have not yet slept tonight as the craziness of preparing to leave has forced me awake. As deliciously tempting as an hour nap sounds before I have to embark on 24 straight hours of travel, I feel I owe you more than a fleeting thought. So, blog it is.

You and I have gotten to know each other well these past 5 1/2 months. We are more than contemporaries or acquaintances and more like...soul mates, kindred spirits even. As surprisingly different as we are (diametric opposites perhaps), we have found a way into each other's hearts, the good mingled intimately with the bad.

When I first met you I had no idea what to expect. I was scared, excited, thrilled, and on sensory overload. There you were in all your complex beauty; raw, real, and not even trying to hide your flaws. You were intimidating. You were inspiring. You were so foreign from everything I had ever known, yet somehow I felt drawn to you. The more I got to know you, the more I realized how many layers you had...sometimes you withheld yourself in ways that frustrated me and sometimes you revealed yourself in ways that left me in awe. You are a bizarre conundrum, the best part being that you make no qualms about it.

I have to admit, somewhat bashfully, that you have seen every side of me...sides I thought were forever dormant. You saw my tears and my triumphs, heard my laughs and my screams. You broke me down into the tiniest fragments of myself while simultaneously bestowing on me many treasures that will change the course of my life forever.

As much as I wanted to hit and kick you in my moments of turmoil, I admit that your trials presented me a view into the world that I had never seen. Like using alcohol to treat a wound, you burned like hell yet somehow made me better, cleaner, and sent me down the road to healing. You amazed me, surprised me, infuriated me, made me feel on top of the world, made me feel worthless, challenged me, slapped me around, and even made me physically ill...but the most valuable thing you ever did for me was teach me.

I can't say for sure why you chose me to come here, but it's undeniable that you did. I'm sure in due time I will gain more understanding of everything I have seen and done with you, even the parts I don't like remembering much.

As I now prepare to leave you, it is with a bitter-sweet spring in my step. I am ready to leave your certain oppressions and sufferings yet I am afraid to fly ahead for fear I may have missed something you wished to show me. I take great comfort in knowing that you will always be a part of me, no matter where this life may lead, and will therefore never cease to affect my very being. You are curious and unique and though I will never understand you completely, I will never stop appreciating you. Thank you for touching parts of my heart that I almost forgot existed.

You have been life's greatest challenge in my quarter century of existence, yet somewhere inside I know you have also been life's greatest gift.

With the deepest of sincerity and gratitude,

Elana

Milk was a bad choice.

I should be sleeping instead of blogging...but the last several nights I haven't been able to fall asleep until well after 2 or 3am. My goal was to be in bed and asleep by midnight...it's almost 1am. I guess next time I should adjust for a more attainable goal?

I have been thinking a lot about leaving India and what that means for me in the way of closing this chapter, beginning a new one, and figuring out all the pages in between. I couldn't begin to describe my emotions at my current situation but I do know I'm feeling restless and ready for some of the old familiar. Since no detectible levels of processing seem to be occurring in my cerebral real estate, I will move on to more trivial matters.

A few nights ago I went out to see Iron Man 2. I know this might sound so ridiculous, but I wasn't even aware they had movies playing here that are in English without subtitles. In nearly five months, this is the first movie I have gone to (why didn't I know about this phenomenon earlier?!). We went with a new friend who is Indian-American and is studying at a medical college next door to where we live. Being that she is an American transplant, she understands so much of what we have gone through during our time here. It was refreshing to share some discussions and laughs with someone who gets our cultural nuances.

Seeing a movie here is like crossing the border of a militarized country; they search you and the contents of your bag more thoroughly than a high security airport. I was totally busted when they discovered a bag of gummi bears hiding in my purse; they take their food crimes here very seriously. I watched as they temporarily confiscated my snacks and my digital camera battery...yet made no mention of the relatively large pocket knife keeping company with the always perilous gummi samurais and the radioactive battery laser gun. Go figure. They were lucky I wasn't there to stab the employees and make off with all the rupees I could carry.

The only draw backs to my movie going experience (minus the search and seizure bit) were two wholly obnoxious, loud, and crude guys sitting a couple of rows back from us. They were the only ones in the entire theater who thought they had riotous senses of humor...and trust me, they DIDN'T. If I would have heard ONE more comment about Scarlett Johannson's butt mingling in a sentence with the phrase, "your mom...," "last night...," or "*&$%#"...things might have gotten even uglier than their foul sailor mouths. They were Indian-American, also come back to the motherland to study medicine; God help me if I ever wake up in the ER peering into one of their faces. I shudder at the thought.

It's really no wonder why the world hates Americans, producing such upstanding citizens and all.

With that, it is bedtime. Goodnight, India. Goodnight, America. Goodnight, American dudes living in India studying medicine at a nearby college working so hard at your school assignments that you have zero intellectual activity available for use by the end of the night when you are at the movies...you should have stayed at home.