Five Minute Friday: Missing Friends
Friends.What can I say--I miss them.The tears pool and I think, "my cup runneth under." In a new country, a new place, a new community where I haven't yet found community. At least how I left it in San Diego. With friends and soul sisters and fellow travelers in the journey.I'd trade the male attention and gawking and "chit chitting" noises from the men I pass in the street, and even the Spanish speaking, for a conversation with a real friend over coffee. For a heart to heart with someone who knows more than just my name and what country I'm from. For a reminder of who I was when I liked myself. Back in San Diego, where I was welcomed into so many circles, so many communities with love and acceptance I did not deserve. And I'm here in this town of transient tourists and do-gooders and missionaries and social entrepreneurs and travelers of every stripe, and I just miss home. Miss friends.I miss the friends who changed my life. Who sang a song of love over me. Who loved me when I didn't love me. Who live boldly and authentically and deeply. Who taught me to fight for my own heart. Who taught me to cradle their hearts and calm their fears. Who shifted my sarcastic spirit to one of encouragement, of uplifting, of truth telling. Who taught me how to be a friend.
And as I sit, missing and messy, I think of the people I see every day here in this town of transience. I think of their smiling and drinking and volcano climbing and volunteering and Spanish learning and how jealous I am of how happy they look, how comfortable. And I wonder if they have nights too of sitting, missing and messy.I wonder how I can be a friend.***This post is part of Lisa Jo Baker’s Five Minute Friday writing challenge. To learn more about Five Minute Friday and how you can participate click here.
An About Face
A year ago I lived in San Diego, CA. I worked at Plant With Purpose. I never imagined I would actually leave both and move to another country. I never imagined I would actually live my dream and I never imagined my dream would be this hard.I never imagined it would be so difficult to a build a new life, a new community. It's not that there isn't life or community here; it's just not the same. It's just budding and new and full of awkward Spanish conversations.But He promised I will find life here. In the Spanish syllables and the volcano views. In the distance from the ones I love, the ones who make me belly laugh and draw tears from my eyes. In my attic room adorned with the love notes of dearest friends. In a room laced with truths and guarded with prayers, dreams. In a home opened to me in the gaudy gift of hospitality. I will find life.
Am I looking?Yes and no.Sometimes all I can see is loneliness. What I've given up. My vision blurred with the pain of what I cannot see. A heart hungry for meaning and purpose and connection and engagement. A spirit fearing failure. Dwelling on my own part in this dissatisfaction of the dream.But what if loneliness is the point? Not that I shouldn't seek friends or work or community, but that I shouldn't run away from who I am, alone. That my loneliness is actually an invitation to trust. To be with the One who is Himself a community of three. A chance to look into who I am without the trappings of titles or the affirmation of deep, time-tested friendships.Why is it so hard to sit alone? To not immediately turn on Netflix and invest my emotions in someone else's life? I'm an introvert for goodness sake. I should be okay with alone time.But I find myself wrestling out of it. Willing myself to feel happy and filled without doing the hard work of finding out what it is that fills me. What it is, or Who it is, that wants to fill me.In The Cloister Walk, Kathleen Norris quotes a monastic sister, "That's a big part of adjusting to life in a monastic community, to sit and face your loneliness, your emptiness, and not let distractions turn you from the task."
I've moved to a foreign country, not vowed to lifelong celibacy, but I think the adjustment to any new life comes with loneliness and questions and chances to get it wrong and right.It's a strange resolution, I admit, but I think my first step in finding life here will be to sit and face my loneliness, my emptiness, and not let distractions turn me from the task. To not see a night alone as a failure, but as an opportunity to sit and pray. To not view a delayed email as proof that I am not worthy of pursuit, but instead as a reminder that, of course, I am not worthy of pursuit, but I am pursued anyway, by a Love worth receiving.So I will sit. I will not sulk. And I will sign off Netflix. And I will seek life in Guatemala.