On Transition

We've travelled long and hard this past year. I find it funny now when people say that they "love" travel. I have a sort of love-hate relationship with it and feel as if everyone should have those same feelings (I do tend to want people on my side so take this statement with a grain of salt). I've travelled a fair bit in my small lifetime and it's not an easy lifestyle. Travel has become mine and Aaron's life, with our respective experiences of our pasts thrown in the mix as well. Of course, I am in love with touring abroad because well, who isn't? I am learning however to love living in overseas. In my experience, this takes a lot of work.

No scheme of man has come up with a way to make transition from culture to culture easy. It is hard work so if all you've done is travel, you don't know what it feels like yet. I'm not recommending it necessarily either. Moving in and out of a new culture pulls at the threads of who you are. We are creatures of habit and we like building environments which suit our comforts and needs. If we are accustomed to central heat and air, we face a lot of discomfort when we live in a country where this doesn't exist. The good news though is that we are adaptable creatures. We can live in almost any environment, but not without experiencing stress.

I am, of late, trying to figure out how to make transition from one culture to another less stressful. I've found that this transition I'm going through right now has revealed some pretty negative things about my personality. Stress tends to make a person delve deeper into oneself and that self's habits, tendencies and reactions. Stress brings forth the extreme parts of those "thought-to-be" mastered bad habits and proceeds to rear its ugly head for the world to see. Just the other day, I found myself caught in a whirlwind of indecision. Like a scratched CD, skipping every few seconds, I became stuck in one spot and couldn't move past to the good stuff. It felt like my brain was stuck in this mode of indecision and I hated it, but it was near impossible to change.

So, how do you prevent these negative tendencies from springing up? How do you find a way to live joyfully and meaningfully during times of transition? Well, I'm not sure yet. I'm figuring it out through trial and error. This is one of those great perks of being a human being. We get to try and fall flat on our face in order to find answers. I really despise this reality as I am a perfectionist in a lot of ways. However, there's got to be something beautiful in this process. I would like to be able to handle stress like a weed whose little petals I can blow gently to the wind. Who knows if that's possible.

I love my life right now as it is filled to the brim with adventure and purpose. It's shaping me, strengthening me, raising my tolerance for struggle and therefore broadening my capacity to do what I know I was meant to do with my life. Being abroad and back again is a privilege. It is stressful in so many ways, but I've come to believe it is good. I know that the way isn't so safe and it sure isn't easy, but I have a feeling that it's good. There's something authentic in that very truth that keeps me pressing on.