The title above is a quote lifted from Shakespeare, originally spoken by Juliet who is a complete airhead, however it accurately describes how I am feeling right now.
On the one hand I am excited to be going home, to see my family who I haven't seen in almost a year, and to meet my new little nephew. (Kathy, has he been born yet????) And, to catch up with my lovely lovely friends and find out what has happened in every-bodies lives since I have been gone. And just to breath NZ air and feel like I am back in my place!
On the other hand I have made so many dear friends in America who I will miss greatly. All the People at BHHEC who are my American Home and Family and my 2 great room mates, fantastic classmates, and the Staff at AFCOE who have enriched my life so greatly and weasled themselves into my heart - I will miss you all!!
I still haven't figured out if it is best to be the person leaving or the person staying - if you stay then you only lose one person, but life goes on in the same monotonous routine so the fact that that person is gone leaves a noticeable hole. If you go then you lose everyone - but the next adventure begins which distracts you from the feeling of 'missingness'!
In this case I think being the person staying would suck the most because everybody is leaving, and there is only you and the monotonous routine left ...
Things I am looking forward to about being at Home:
- Family and Friends
- Seeing My stars! The Southern Cross, Orion standing on his head - he actually looks a little odd the right way up ;-) I am looking forward to seeing the Milky Way - the stars are so dim in the US, I miss them.
- Summer!
- Feijoa's
- Cinnamon - my Cat! (Praying that she will forgive me immediately for deserting her for so long and decide not to give me the silent treatment!)
- Mum's new house - I get to explore.
- Driving on the left hand side of the road - and not risking getting run over every time I have to cross a road.
- Hopefully getting left and right sorted out in my head again. Being in America has totally screwed my sense of left and right ... and yes before anyone says anything I will admit that it was pretty shaky to begin with!
- Christmas!
Things I will miss from America:
- Friends!!!!!!!!!!!! I could go on and list you all but between South Dakota and California it would take a long time ...
- Wild flowers - America has so many wild flowers compared to NZ - given that we don't really have any, except dandelions and daisies in the lawn. I don't think I have seen a single daisy since I've been here - weird. I'll post a Facebook Album of wild flower pictures - just don't judge my photography skills they totally depend on my point and shoot camera, I'd much rather paint the flowers than photograph them - but then of course by the time I've finished with that, they won't actually be recognisable...
- Persimmon orchards - I've never seen more than one persimmon tree in the same place before, to see row upon row of trees of ripe persimmons has been fascinating.
- Lays Limon chips.
- Chipmunks!!!!!!!!!!!!! (but I miss them already, had a whole family outside my room in South Dakota, none in California.)
- Wild life - seeing deer wandering around the campus's of both Weimar and BHHEC, chipmunks, squirrels, bison, turkeys - flocks of them flying in SD and more wandering around peoples front lawns in California, and that was in the city, and so many more different species that I had only read about in books before. But I won't miss skunks!! (Never actually saw one of them, just smelled them!)
- Surprises - In NZ I am comfortable, I know and am known. In America I am always bumping into surprises, whether it is a word that means something different to what it means for me or different ways of doing things or a host of little things that cause me to see life in new ways - don't always like them but they are always interesting!!!!
- Being Unique, LOL. At home I get to blend into the crowd, here the moment I open my mouth I'm marked out as different.
- The Amazing Spiritual food we have been feed daily at AFCOE! I am really really going to miss this! But I know that it's time for me to be sent out to do what I've been training for in the last four and a half months and I know that as long as I keep up my personal devotions and maintain that connection with God, He will continue to provide my Spiritual nourishment!!!! And that is most important because I don't want to lose what I have gained here.
I will do a whole separate post about the AFCOE experience, here I will just say that it has been amazing, and has changed my life forever!!
Well I'm going to finish this post up, post the testimonial from my re-baptism, have a brief nap while there is no one around - airport is quiet, we seem to be between flights or something - and then I will write the promised AFCOE experience blog.
Tata for now.
No comments:
Post a Comment