Thanksgiving

American holidays are weird here. The passing of seasons feels different, too. All the normal markers that tell me when summer is changing into fall, and fall into winter, seem to have disappeared.

Part of this is simply me not being a student anymore, for the first time in 20 years. Part of it is being in a new culture that celebrates other holidays that I'm unfamiliar with. Regardless though, it messes with my own internal calendar. Today is Thanksgiving - yet when people send me "Happy Thanksgiving!" texts, it feels like a practical joke. How can it be Thanksgiving already? Where are the turkey decorations in the stores? Where are the sales on chicken broth and pumpkin puree? Where is the hype and excitement of Black Friday shopping right around the corner?

On that note, where were the Halloween costumes lining the shelves? Where were the bags of discounted candy? The parties where friends come dressed up bearing cookies in the shape of pumpkins and ghosts?

It's fall now. A month until Christmas. But the leaves here haven't changed colors. In fact, because the winter season here also brings the rain, flowers are actually beginning to bloom, not wilt. Grass is suddenly growing everywhere, and the countryside has changed, seemingly overnight, from brown to green. Everything that would normally mark the passing of time for me has shifted - there are no final exams or papers in the coming weeks for me to study or prepare for. No multiple weeks of vacation between semesters, no visit home to reunite with family and friends.

It's odd how, being here, time seems to both speed up and slow down at different intervals; and then also simply stand stagnant and still.

I've been struggling a lot here lately. Just trying to figure out what my role is and how I can best help the people I came here to serve. October was a hard month to absorb and process. There were near daily stabbing attacks and shootings, and I was told by people on both sides that those on the other were heartless and evil; that really they shouldn't even be considered to be people at all.

There have been times when I have wondered if maybe I have bitten off more than I can chew, coming here for 11 months. Jumping into two cultures at once, and trying to fully understand and empathize with both at the same time, has proven challenging, and it's been hard to not slip into moments of grief or despair.

I don't like admitting it when things are hard. I like to portray myself as perfect and put-together: strong, independent, sure. I want people to think that I am cool and calm and capable, no matter the situation; that I have everything figured out and under control.

But, the truth is, I don't. I am broken, struggling, and at a loss as to how to "be" in a place where I am constantly wearing one mask or another. Where, by not choosing a side, I isolate myself from both. Where daily life activities require buckets of emotional energy to accomplish, and where my support system is literally thousands of miles away.

For those of you who say to me that I am lucky to be here, that this is an opportunity of a lifetime, that I will take things away from this experience that will forever impact me - you are right.

And also, this is one of the most isolating, disorienting, emotionally and spiritually challenging things I may ever do.

But things are getting better. I'm making friends here, building a community. I enjoyed a Thanksgiving day dinner this evening with a group of professors from the U.S. here on sabbatical. And tomorrow I will have another Thanksgiving day meal at a Lutheran church that many internationals regularly worship at. People have been taking me in and welcoming me into their circles.

I have hope that the worst has passed and that things can only get better from here. I also have Ellie, who reminds me to laugh everyday as she slips and slides on my tile flooring, or chases her tail with a determination that makes absolutely no sense.