In cases of PTSD, major family illnesses, a death of someone close...we are often astounded at the negative effects these types of things bring on and it takes a while to "get over" them. Other times, we have experiences that are so amazing that we can have a similar difficulty. We never claim trying to "get over" things like a marriage or the birth of a child, but the adjustments can be just as difficult.
I'm sure you can think of a great list of things that would fit into these categories, but what of the things that are a little of both? In each of the aforementioned cases, the goals of our adjustment are pretty clear cut. We want to move past our grief. We learn to take joy in the new love we have discovered. But when we have experiences that are a bit of a hybrid, we find ourselves at a loss. I know it's not easy to list these kinds of things so I'll just tell you about one.
I'm now in my second full day home since returning from a mission trip to Nicaragua with a group of students and parents from my youth group. We had four adults (including me) and seven students. Of those, one of the adults and six of the students had never left the country (except for on a cruise or the like).For 10 days, we spent our time much differently than when we are at home. We built houses in some of the "poorest" parts of town in a third world country. We served people who waited in line for hours to get a few days' worth of simple aspirin. We stuffed bags with a meager supply of baby care items and distributed them to new moms. We accepted it as normal to not be able to understand what the people around us were saying. We struggled to deal with the (in)capabilities of the plumbing in the bathroom. We were careful to eat and drink only from certain sources so that we could avoid parasites and diseases. We were outsiders...uncomfortable...and it doesn't take long for change to take place in how you value the things around you.
There were a couple of times, when I had access to an internet connection, that I would check in on the news at home and I was shocked how the headlines read so differently to me. I wondered what the locals in these little Nicaraguan villages would think if they read through our news. I saw them struggle to survive and figured they wouldn't really care.
This morning was my first time driving since I got home. It felt weird. I listened to the same talk radio station that I always do and the news was weird. I heard the same advertisements for the "hoity-toity" housing developments with waterfront property I've heard almost every weekday morning for years and it was weird. I went to breakfast with a friend at Cracker Barrel and it was weird. Not because of my friend, but because I said "gracias" instead of thank you and I didn't have to wonder if my food was safe.
Maybe I'm just rambling today...maybe my readers are my therapists...I just know that its hard to sort out all of the thoughts and feelings you have after these experiences. It's like waking up from a dream except the dream is reality...and that makes things a bit foggy. Can we just pick up with our normal lives and "get over it" and go on? Do we want to? Do we need to? If we don't, it brings sorrow, but is that sorrow bad? Will I be rocked to sleep by the droning of our culture and it's version of our needs?
What's the point? Why did I sit down to write today? Why is this relevant to anyone else? I'm not sure, really.
Have you ever been in this place? Have you had one of those in-between experiences? What did you do?
