I titled this post "The long road home" because this returning back to America thing that I'm preparing to do has been quite a painful trudging process even though I am returning to loved ones and to the country that I know and love. Don't get me wrong, and please try to understand that I am really excited to be returning home and this in no way means that I'm thinking of staying. I was recently talking to a close family member about how hard it is going to be to leave and I think I made this person feel like they were not important to me and I don't want to give that impression. This experience being here in Taiwan for the past two years has just become so much more than a temporary spot to wait out the economy. For starters, I always want big decisions and major changes in my life to be progressing in the "better and better" category and I might have outdone myself moving to Taiwan. I mean when you move to a tropical island out in the pacific ocean that speaks a foreign language and eats foreign things like cow stomach and ducks blood, how do you get better than that by moving back to America (other than moving to New Orleans)? But the real thing that is upsetting me is that once I had made the decision a while back that I was not going to be staying for another year I endeavored myself to finish seeing all of the things that I still hadn't seen, and saying the things that I wanted to say to the people that mean the most to me, and doing the things that I wanted to do with those people, and I've realized that I don't have enough time to do everything. I have also realized that I really haven't enjoyed this endeavor as much as I thought I would because with each thing checked off the list and words said to people that I care about have driven the painful stake of leaving this experience deeper and deeper into my soul. For a person that likes to keep moving in order to keep life interesting, I kind of hate moving. It really sucks! There are moments that I've had and memories that I have made that have changed my life forever but I'm afraid that, much like my mission, since I have made these great memories in a place so far away from home and the norm of living in America that these experiences will be so easily forgotten and seem like a they didn't happen and these people didn't exist. To me and my life, relationships are a very important thing to me and I try very hard to grapple onto the people who mean the most to me and I don't want Taiwan to fall out of my grasp because of distance.
Recently I have been watching the missionaries and how they keep a hold of their memories and carry around a bye-bye book which is a collection of people's thoughts, memories, and words of love and encouragement that is put together in a sketch book. The people of Taiwan really grab onto this tradition and make their personal page very creatively interesting by drawing funny cartoons of memories or posting crazy pictures of themselves and even making a scrap book kind of thing. It is so great to see how Taiwanese people love being creative and they really take advantage when given the chance. I wish I could collect all of my memories here into a bye-bye book like them and have something that I could look back on and always remember. I think I will start a bye-bye book of my own. I know that it won't be able to fit everything that I want to remember but it could contain some.
I will say this, I AM very excited to be coming home and I look forward to the many amazing and life changing experiences that I am to have with all of you coming up.
