Senses

on Thursday, August 30, 2012
Some days I absolutely love living here.  I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.  Other days, I want to go home, to the U.S., immediately.  Let me go quickly pack my bags, and I'll see you tomorrow.

Homesickness comes in waves and gets worse around holidays.  I generally have productive ways to work it out, like calling someone on Skype or sending someone a little care package in the mail.  It also gives me a good opportunity to focus on the people back at home and pray for them, so that I'm not just thinking about them sullenly and becoming a blubber of a mess.

Other days, when I'm just living life and not thinking much about where I'm living it, I get a little flash of a memory from home.  The longer I am away from WA, the more I am starting to realize how so many of my memories of my home (I still consider Yakima to be home because Reuben and I, until we came here, never had a place that felt like "home" to us) and of childhood are connected to senses.   The smell of freshly cut grass and the sound of a lawnmower.  A slight (and I mean slight) chill coming through the bedroom window.  Having a good burger.  Drinking iced tea.  Listening to the music at Starbucks.  It returns me to things at home that I don't get to experience here, like how I can recognize who's coming in the house (Yakima) by the way they shut the front door.  Smelling the evening's dinner as my mom is cooking it.  Spending evenings lying in the grass watching the stars.  Having to walk around the entire house before I find my mom working in the flower bed.  The smell of Target (trust me, you would miss it too!)  The feeling of warm clothes coming out of the dryer.

Despite all that we've left behind, there's so many new memories we're making, that I'm sure we'll miss when we're back in the U.S.   Things like our morning runs and evening walks, going down to the pool whenever we feel like it, eating mangos endlessly, and never feeling cold.  Eating the best food Asia has to offer. Maybe not the karaoke, fireworks, or prayer calls from the mosque that last far into the night though.

Sun rising

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