Transitions

The windows looking out of my little "seafoam-green" room are open and I can see and hear the fresh world outside that is my home in central PA. The birds are whistling nonsense and sometime soon I'll hear those grasshoppers proclaiming the delights of summer nights - loudly.

I am in a very different place. 

On May 2nd, I traveled home from Lietuva and by random chance went the whole way with Tyler. We stepped out of Karklų bendrabutis at 3:30am into a cool morning which smelt of change. After my last look back at my dear friends (an image which will stay with me for a long time I believe), I turned to follow my swift-footed partner. "Are you ready?" he asked. I breathed deeply and kept walking. Those were the words of our trip back. Again and again we returned to them. I didn't have an answer until standing in the US customs line where I told him, "Tyler, I think I'm as ready as I'll ever be." Maybe it was just the effect of the propagandistic-like movies which welcomed us home on me or maybe I really was as ready as I'd ever be. 

Nevertheless, the transition have been difficult. Several times I've been tempted to call Tyler and tell him that I was wrong. But I never did. Instead, in those moments when I've felt the change the most, I've either A) turned to the same God who was with me from my first moment in Lietuva till my last and right up until now. Or instead I've B) lost myself in nostalgic remembrances of Klaipėda and those whom I dreaded to leave. Here are some of the images that come repeatedly to my mind:

Ieva and I -- on an incredible (rainy) cycling tour in Eastern Lietuva.

Lida, Alla and Tanya on Tanya's birthday

Aurelija, Iveta and I on a huge frozen lake in Finland

With Ieva and the Baltic Sea. Both dear to me.

Clearly, it's the people I miss the most. But it's not simply a transition of people. It's a transition of culture. Of language. Of food. Of location. Of ways of life. Of the little things. It still shocks me that I can eavesdrop on strangers again. That I can put the toilet paper in the toilet. That I can speak with clerks. That people talk so loudly. That strangers smile and greet me. That I can't find light-switches. That I actually like green tea. That I'm thousands of miles away from a beloved place and people that continue to exist each new day without me.

Perhaps I should make more of an effort to follow option A.

So yes, the transition has been difficult. It is worth it though. I love my home, my friends and most importantly my family. I have loved these places and people for a long long time and don't want to be alienated from them. I don't want to be the weird study-abroad kid that Rachel Mac so aptly caricatures in her sitcom. But I also don't want to be the same as I was before I left or as everyone else is just for the sake of having a place or fulfilling what is expected of me. 


May God help me to make the transition, therefore, and also to retain the memories and the newness of life which was added to my own in a beautiful, misty and seemingly far way land.