Yes, it has been just over a year, and yes, it is okay that I still fumble through North American society. It is okay that I don't know what I mean exactly when I refer to home. It is okay that sometimes I don't know what language to speak in, how to gesture to people, and as always, what side of the road to drive on in the middle of the night. Relief...
I laugh sometimes, because when I came back to Canada, I went through debriefing, read the books, did the talks, the prep work for re-entering. And I gave myself two weeks when I came back to get a job and to fully immerse myself into normal culture. I thought I would be ready. I thought I wouldn't think about my other home, my other family.
Now I know.
Two weeks was nothing. More than that,
13 months is nothing. I have some semblance of normalcy in my life. I have a routine and a job and a car (one year in I finally bought one, because before this I didn't want to believe that there was a possibility I would be staying here this long).
13 months is enough time to unpack. It is enough time to form new friendships, and try to balance those with the ones overseas and the old ones from before.
13 months is exhausting. It is enough time to question every motive, calling, dream. It is enough time to question everything you thought and once believed. It is enough time for your current worldview to clash with every cultural value once held.
13 months is freeing. I am learning many things all over again. Why I do certain things the way I do, how to order in a restaurant, how to tip, and to add tax onto labelled prices.
But more than that, my dreams are beginning to grow again. I am re-discovering passions that I had lost time for. I am doing things I haven't had the opportunity to do since high school.
13 months is enough time to plan and re-plan a hundred escape routes from Canada. It is enough time to have all a hundred of those plans fall through, and it is enough time to totally not know what God has next in store for you, or to have people question why you still work as a cashier, when you've had post-secondary education.
13 months is enough time to grow upset with God because He hasn't revealed His next steps, and then it is also enough time to grow the patience to wait, because whatever adventure comes next will probably be awesome, its just not ready for me yet...
13 months and counting...
Re-entry continues. I've come to realize that it probably will until just before I have to go and learn another culture, language, mindset. I'm looking forward to the challenge. But Im also content knowing that God will bring that about when it is fully time. And in the meantime, I can drink really good coffee, and make really good friends, and enjoy things like peanut butter, just because its cheap. And those are all good things. Because God is a good God!
