Processing Forgiveness

When I came into University as a Freshman, I, along with my other fresh-people, had to take a "StrengthsFinder" test.

Unsurprisingly, my top strength was "Achiever."
I enjoy recreationally being good at things, pretty regardless of what that thing is.

I study the situation, figure out a method and plan of attack, and start in slowly toward success until success is achieved.

The funny thing about forgiveness is that it doesn't really work that way. At one moment, you might be all in, all there, truly "feeling" the forgiveness.

Then it's two weeks later and the anger is like lava in your rib cage, seeping toward your heart.
It's ugly. And you're confused. "Didn't I work through this?"

I am right there in the midst, yet again, of cooling and chipping off that volcanic rock.

Life happened while I was away.
Shoot, life is happening in NI while I'm gone from it, too.

And that's weird, but it's true.

I still don't think I've experienced any culture shock--other than the professional kind--but in that way, in the sense of turning into my own present reality all the little and big changes that have occured in my absense, I am still reeling a bit.

My first "test" did not go super well, but I'm learning. I'm growing. And I'm letting go--again--of what I thought I had already let go of.

Every day we re-start over.

Big Girl Job: Week 1

Did I mention how completely structure-less my life was in NI?

It's worth mentioning. Or mentioning again.

Except for that 10am tea break, there ain't nothin' scheduled.

I went to class once a week, give or take. In the middle of the afternoon.

For a year, I existed in this weird 'I do what I want when I want' state.

I've got a riddle for you: What's tea-less and steel-structured?

The Adult Work Week.

8:30-5 every. single. day.

Yes, I recognize that none of you have an ounce of pity for me, "Uh. Yah. Duh. That's what being an adult looks like", but it is a pretty insane culture shock for me. There are a lot of naps involved in my life right  now.

Overall, though, I think I'm going to really like my job once I get going.

My fangirl for JBU thing comes in handy when leading campus tours, and I'm reading through the history of JBU (not helping the fangirl thing).

One particlarly interesting thing I've learned while reading is that John E. Brown Senior tried to leave Siloam nearly 6 times (I haven't finished the book; it could be more). More than that, he attempted to move the entire university over to Sulpher Springs for a few years, too.

And yet, every single time, he came back to her.

Once you find her, you never leave her.
It was never my plan or intention to be here right now, but yet here I am!! And I love it here.
Yes, it's small and a little dinky and we've got amish in our Walmart, but it's a place you want to call home. It's a place you want to build your bookshelves.

It's a place where you can TP your boss's office and not get fired...

What You've Missed: The Move

It wasn't enough that I moved continents about 11 days ago. Nope! I needed to hop on across the state line as well.

It's official! I am now living in Siloam Springs, Arkansas. I won't say I'm a resident there yet (though all my paperwork is filled out with my new semi-permanent address), but this is where I live now.

Ain't she cute and southern with her front porch and all? 

I am the newest resident of Glenwood Gables, with my housemates Sarah and Liz. However, Liz has yet to appear back from Vacation, so I've just been getting to know Sarah. 

Already I love them. They could not be sweeter. When I arrived at the house, they'd moved in my desk and bedframe that had been in their garage (a system of internationally buying things off my university's classified ads, my parents graciously transferring them, and then to storage at the Gables), put a vase of flowers in my favorite color, and written me notes/put little gifts around the house. 

They made my transition to Arkansas fun and sweet and easy. I've been very blessed. 

And then, of course, there's Walmart. 

Okay so maybe I have missed the south just a little bit.

What You've Missed: The Wedding

My best friend got married.

still on the go, now as a pro

It is unreal to me that I've already been back in the states for over a week now.

In some ways, switching back to your home country is like riding a bike: no matter how long you've been away, you kinda slip back into the rhythm, the patterns of it all without much thought.

Things like driving on the "right" side of the road, having wal-mart within 5 miles, speaking americanized english, and being around my family--all things that I thought would be strange to readjust to--seem so normal.

Honestly (though I am pretty convinced it just hasn't hit me yet, been too busy), the only time I've even thought about it all is when I pull out my phone (I HAVE A PHONE AGAIN) to text someone and get concerned that I'm going to be texting them at an unreasonable hour...and then remember we're in the same timezone. If the hour is unreasonable for them, it is also unreasonable for me.

The big girl job started yesterday, and, despite the fact that my free-spirited self is dying a little inside with every moment of my confining, endless schedule, I think it is going to be a really fun job.

The people I work with are fun, sassy, like what they do, and really like my university.

I'm currently stuck in the training paperwork part (my goodness there are a lot of blanks to fill it to officially be a grown-up!), but once it gets going, I'll be all over it.

My recruiting regions are Siloam Springs, Arkansas and the entire state of Texas.

I'm pretty excited to get to use the people skills I've acquired over the past year dealing with people (good and challenging) while waitressing, living with others, and making friends in a country I knew nobody.

Bring it on, angsty teens and helicopter parents!

Look Up, Look Down, Look Out

It seemed a little odd to me momentarily how spotty my postings from this semester have been.

Then, when I consider the fact that, rather than listening to the sound of the life of my mind, I have been listening to the voices of my friends as we live life with one another, I'm no longer confused at all. 

I stopped writing about life because I started to live it. 

When I imagined living in Northern Ireland, this is what I imagined. 

Books and learning, sure.
But this--on the go, travelling, spending time with school friends and church friends and the friends of friends, skyping with loved ones from home, having a clear direction, full of joy and fun and banter--is the stuff of all the things I had ceased to believe were in the books for me here. 

God turned this, the greenest desert of my soul, into an oasis. 

Over and over and over since my February return, God demonstrated to me more unexpected goodness than I had even begun to hope for by handing to me (in exact) the deepest desires of my heart, the ones I dreampt up and wished for but never even considered asking after. 

I had thrown them, my expectations clothed as "hopes", from my mind and gritted my teeth. For good or bad, I told God, I was coming back to NI, just because I knew this was the place he had laid out for me in this time. Unlike last semester, I armed myself and prepared for the blows to start. 

Unlike last semester, they didn't come. 

It is a humbling thing to be loved. 

The God who "destroyed" my life has rebuilt me from the bones out and set my feet in an entirely different direction and equipped me for what is to come. 

I will get distracted and dramatic and a little bit lost. 

I'm human. 

But I can tell you this much: I am irrevocably changed. 

All thanks and praise be to God, my father, my glory and the lifter of my head. 

Lasts

• Last lunch with my MA friends (Boojum and Common Grounds after for coffee and traybakes)
• Last goodbye and house reset for any groups I'll be in charge of (Family and Human Services. We liked them very much). 
• Last bonding time with Heather and Jonny (My smallgroup leaders during the past year, featured here with their kids, Heather's sweet sister Lorna, and some cute kids I was babysitting)
  
• Last trip to the special collections (to look up an old MA dissertation for help on how to structure my own)
• Last coffee in the Starbucks on Botanic (the site of many a public tear shed)
• Last night in my room, St. Patrick (They needed my room for one of the other group's students)
• Last "class" (technically that was a couple weeks ago, but I had to return to meet with my dissertation supervisor) 
• "The Last Supper" with the girls (High Tea with Lynsey, Lauren, and Megan)
• Last Botanic outing (dinner with Steve and Hot Greg)
• Last cuddles with Lauren at midnight (really good surprise)
• Last Sunday morning at Belfast City Vineyard (Happy Pentecost, errybody!)
• Last hugs with Kiera and my other church friends (Held it together dynamically until my final hug with Kiera)
• Last hugs with Megs (she came over to drop by a "Northern Irish Must-Haves" gift. So lovely)
• Last tea with Naomi (where I passed the torch of Mac n Cheese and Kool-Aid off to her, we finished the season of New Girl we started when I got here, and she gave me an "on-flight entertainment" gift, wrapped but I'm assured it's customs approved)
• Last bag packed (It was an ordeal. Don't even want to discuss how much cursing happened)

Now to spend my last night in the place I've called home for almost a year now and will forever be part of my soul. Lynsey told me I'm allowed to claim myself as 1/22 Northern Irish now and would be more legitimate in doing so than nearly every American that claims Irish heritage. It made me laugh. And it's probably true. 

These here are my last goodbyes. Wow. 

The Ultimate Penultimate

'Twas the day before the day before I leave and all through the house, there were traces that I'd worn makeup and a blouse.

Megs came to fetch me in her tea-time ensemble, and we met up with the girls on the Lisburn Road. 

For my departure, high tea was called for, and we sat in a dainty room with dainty plates and cups and sandwiches and sweets and felt very proper. Pinkies up indeed. 

Except for the fact that our conversation was all over the place from discussion on times we'd accidentally had soured milk (Lauren claimed it made her tea taste of strawberries) to manroasting to medical stories. Every once in a while we'd chuckle about how everyone else in the room was probably talking about tea-appropriate topics, such as the weather. Or doilies. 

We ended our time together with failed selfies (memories must be documented) and a prayer. Until that last bit there, I'd held it together but, like every single member of my family, one word into talking to the Lord, and I crumpled. We hugged, I gave them letters, and we parted. But not forever. 

The girls that started it all when they adopted me in October. 

Fancy tea. The pot with the flowers in it says, "Belfast Tease", which I think is darling. 

Snuggles and disgust at airplanes and America

Megs. :) And my practically iridescent skin that so does not know what it's in for soon 

Walking into the sunset together. Bye bye besties.

No time for tears, though! 

When Megan dropped me back off at the house, I changed shoes and went right back into  the city with Steve and Hot Greg (nickname since Freshman year of uni. It ain't changed). 

We got dinner at Lee Gardens and could not have had more fun with the ambiance. It was still bright outside, but they lit a candle on our table. From the ceiling were downward twisting light fixtures made of glass daisies. Along the railing (there was an upstairs, too) were blue icicle lights which lit up in sections bottom to top instead of top to bottom. 

And, to top it off, playing from the speakers was a playlist including "Heart of Worship", "My Heart Will Go On", and "Trouble". 

We made silly faces and talked ridiculously and seriously and just had a really good time. Both of those guys have been my friends since the very beginning of JBU and both just graduated and are moving to Florida. So it was nice having a chance to get some facetime with them before we all go off in separate directions. 

The day quieted down then. We got home and played Spoons as well as Resistance, then Nadia and I retired to "our" room to watch a few episodes of The Office while I messaged a friend from home. 

Over, right?

Not quite. 

Around midnight thirty, I got a text from Lauren asking if I was awake. 

A few minutes after, she showed up in my driveway, having been on her way home from the cinema with her mum and wanting one last snuggle. 

As quickly as I could, I unbolted all 9 bolts and burst into the moonlight where she jumped into my arms. 

It was definitely a movie moment and a little tearful, I'll admit. 

Don't know when I'll see these folks again--any of them--but I do know it's not forever. 

One Last Hurrah

Last Friday, Naomi and I hopped a ferry in The Clio and got ourselves over to Scotland to spend the weekend with her brother.

Now, before I went, my mental image of the weekend was hanging with her bro in some sort of little apartment sleeping on the floor and wandering the middle of nowhere during the day.

That is just not what happened.

Naomi had neglected to mention (or I had neglected to remember) that her brother is an outdoor pursuits instructor. So, we spent the weekend in a house just a little smaller than mine in the middle of The Highlands with a bunch of other twenty somethings. It was an absolute blast.

Does this not remind you of "Heidi"? Just a little bit? 

Friday night we were just pooped so, after a cup of tea (Naomi has an addiction), we went to sleep.

In the morning, we and a group headed out with a bunch of kayaks, canoes, and gear to go white water canoeing. Our river ended up in Loch Ness.

Though we called for her sweetly, I'm sad to report that Nessie was feeling a bit of stage fright that afternoon, so we did not, in fact, catch a glimpse of that grand Scottish creature.

What we did do is get fried to a crisp, despite the lack of heat.

Sunday morning, sunburn and all, we went to this wee sweet Scottish church.
Actually, it was in every way just like the church I attended back in Siloam when I went to JBU. Except they all had Scottish accents and there were graves in the front yard. You know, the norm.

After church, Naomi and I, along with her brother and a couple of his friends, went on a "walk."

We had different definitions of walking. It was a scramble. A fun scramble, but a scramble nonetheless up and across large (and small and mid-sized) sharp rocks along the shoreline.

In so doing, we came across a pod (herd? pack?) of seals! Heresay had it that there were also otters about, but we saw none of them.

Monday morning it was time to leave.
Naomi and I had a very, very long day of travel ahead of us.

2 cars, 2 buses (including a layover in Glasgow), and 2 ferries in order to deposit me back at Lakeside Manor, but the journey was gorgeous.

Ende[e]ring

I've told the story before of how Naomi Deering came into my life, but I find that I have neglected to mention the ways in which the Deering family has filled up my life.

It was the original kindness of Mr. and Mrs. Deering that led myself and Kyle Schmidt to their home in Carrickfergus for an afternoon of tea, dogtime, a hike by the lighthouse, and my first experience with poor bear (honeycomb) ice cream from Maud's.

It was then and there that I met Naomi and she herself who reconnected with me last summer.

From there, it was Naomi who consistently instigated conversation with me all through the summer and following semester, taking me away from home and into hers for tea and New Girl. I gave her little to work with, but she kept pursuing me. I really needed that. Knowing she would be here gave me that extra boost of courage I needed to come back here at the end of January.

In that time period, I again received hospitality from her aunt, uncle, and cousins who let me into their home for tea (of course) on one of my first outings (innings) with Naomi.

Before October was even over, she had asked and had received permission to invite me for Christmas with her family in Spain, then Belfast when they decided to come over instead.

If I hadn't come home so early, I would have been removed to their home for a couple weeks.

This semester, I again had Naomi (on a much more equal and balanced level of friendship, thank goodness) and, in April, had the great pleasure of being driven out to the countryside to the family farm where I was taken care of by her delightful grandparents (and met a whole slew of family members).

Finally, I spent this past weekend in the highlands of Scotland with Naomi's brother and driven home from our final ferry by her cousin.

Ten months.

Ten months and more than ten family members.

The Deering family has demonstrated to me what hospitality and love looks like lived out in the day-to-day. I will forever be thankful to them.