Disclaimer

It's really not true. Life is not *just* a chair of bowlies.  Whatever that is.

Rewind to about a year and a half ago.  New Year's Eve 2010 at my brother's in-laws' place.  Earlier that night, I'd found out some good news ... for someone else.  And while I was very happy for them, it left me wondering "What about me?"

I had two really good conversations that night. Both of them helped me process what I'd heard, and I came to the conclusion that this was going to be an amazing year.  My master's studies were coming to an end in a few months, and I was about 90% sure that I was headed overseas.  This news I'd found out was just enough to push me towards embracing the possibilities. And I was determined that it was going to be a fantabulous year.

See what I did there? I combined the words 'fantastic' and 'fabulous'.  Alas, I cannot take credit for this invention. But I can't tell you who coined this neologism, either.

Neologism: noun, a new word, meaning, usage, or phrase.

(Hey, if you read my profile, you know I'm a word nerd.)

Okay, back to our regularly scheduled ... blog entry. New Year's Eve 2010, I was determined that 2011 would be a great year.

Ironically, 2011 was indisputably the toughest year I've ever had.  

One thing you've got to know about me is that I'm not one to express emotion.  

Wait. I've shown anger, frustration, and happiness more often than I can count. So let's try this again. I'm not one to cry. At least not in front of people.  Over the course of this past year and a bit, however, my stoic exterior has crumbled against my will, and people who have known me for less than a year have seen me cry like a baby.

Talk about humility.

Fast-forward to now. Four months into the year, and 2012 is looking to be just as tough as, if not tougher, than 2011. 

And the toughest thing of all is knowing that there's nothing I can do about it.

A cross-cultural move is difficult at any point in your life.  Life is a tumult of emotions: helplessness, frustration, lostness, anger, etc.  I'm illiterate and about 90% of the time I have no clue what's going on around me. I've left behind family and friends, familiar surroundings and started everything over in a new place where a simple question such as, "would you like a bag?" when at check-out confused me for quite some time. Little by little, though, I've adjusted, and gotten used to the daily rhythms of life.

(By the way, spellcheck doesn't like my use of the word "lostness." But I don't care. Maybe if I use it enough, it'll slip into regular English use.  And then I can take credit for it).

And if all that change wasn't enough ... my father, an unselfish, hardworking man who gave up everything to ensure the security of his family, is currently confined to a hospital bed in my brother's house, unable to do much because of "The Big C."  And the prognosis is very grim; medically speaking, nothing can be done for him.

Funny thing is that I wrote my previous two blog entries at a time when things were especially difficult for me emotionally.  There were so many thoughts reeling through my brain that I was left with a physical headache.  And all I wanted to do was burrow under my blankets, shut my eyes and slip into the sweet oblivion of sleep for a while.

So ... when you read my first two entries followed by this one, things might seem a little ... oxymoronic. Contradictory. And maybe they are.  But at the same time ... they're a picture of life right now.  

While it's true that life has been tough, I've done my best to do two things:

1) Hold on to the truth I expressed in my first entry, namely that Someone has promised that life will be good. It most definitely hasn't been what I would call good, but I'm starting to see glimpses of good nonetheless. And my own personal history has shown me that the Father has yet to fail me. And I've had some amazing adventures in the past year. And I've grown so much.

2) Find the little things that are good.  The day after I'd received some really bad news from home, I received not one, but two packages, one from a friend, and another from my mother. They didn't fix anything; I still had to face and deal with the bad news. But the packages reminded me that I was loved.  And for a little bit, I was ... alright.

And one of the reasons I started this blog was to help me with point number 2. And to show those of you who are going through varying degrees of difficulty that there's still some good to be found in this journey we call life.

So no, life is not *just* a chair of bowlies, though at times, it probably is. And if I could figure out exactly what that means, I could maybe point out a few examples for you.  

Life is just so much more.