airport takeovers & snowstorms won't stop us from a pacific northwest christmas...

Tonight I was out with my mom and about 5000 other day-after-Christmas-shoppers, avoiding two feet snow drifts and large black hummers taking up ridiculously large portions of the road, enjoying warm cups of extra hot caffeinated beverages in bright red cups, and marveling at the amount of fast food restaurants, girls in tall boots and boys in skinny-jeans, and people on iPhones that exist in America.

So, for all of you that don’t know, KR and I are officially back on U.S. soil. After several trips to the over-air-conditioned Chiang Mai International Airport offices discussing multiple flight options (or lack thereof) to get to PDX without having to go through Bangkok (as their airport was caught in the midst of anti-government protests) we got a ticket home. 48 hours later, our offices and apartment were packed, goodbyes were said, a round of ‘lasts’ were enjoyed (motor-bike rides, trips to favorite food ladies, pineapple and other delicious foods only found in Thailand), and a few tears were shed (some of them even mine), we were back at the airport leaving Thailand much earlier than originally anticipated. There were a few other small incidents at the airport to ensure that our time was exciting all the way to the end. While waiting in line to receive our tickets (that we were told did not actually exist), we were informed that neither our luggage nor ourselves were guaranteed to make it all the way to PDX (maybe San Francisco or LA) and we were requested by airline employees to show them exactly where Portland was on their map. However, 20 minutes before takeoff we guzzled inordinate amounts of water, pulled on every layer of clothing we had available, and said our rushed goodbyes to the loyal few who waited with us through the whole ordeal. 37 hours, 4 in-flight movies, 2 sleeping pills, a day of people watching in Seoul’s airport (Korean winter fashion is very fancy!), 3 interesting meals, and 2 glorious dirty-hippie-chais later, we arrived in freezing cold Portland, to a group of beautiful friends, and a night spent surprising our families with our early arrival. 

The past three weeks have definitely felt like a sort of reoccurring dream – the people and locations are all familiar, but everything still has the white blurry edges leaving everything feeling a bit surreal. This dream-like state was made only more intense with a large snow-storm and my inability to get on the right sleeping schedule, or really, my inability to sleep at all. I think that in the midst of leaving Thailand under such crazy and frantic circumstances, my brain is having a hard time making the full adjustment. Korean Airlines did ultimately get both my body and luggage safely to Portland, but it seems like I still left a few essential parts of me along the way, parts of my heart that couldn’t quite keep up with all the changes, and it’s those parts that are just now starting to catch up and make me feel a little less surreal and a bit more whole again.

And so, as I sit here in front of quite a large fire, wrapped under my new Christmas fleece blanket (one of the four I received yesterday. I think the theme this year was: Brittany is cold), with two cats at my feet, I feel content. I know that my heart is still struggling to keep up, I know that I still haven’t fully adjusted to driving on the right side of the road quite yet (even as I just wrote that I had to stop and think. It is the right side here, yeah?), I know that I miss my job, my friends, the kids, the fruit, my Apartment World, my life in Chiang Mai, I know I still feel a bit out of sorts here in my own house, in the city I spent the 8 years of my life, and I know that shopping at grocery stores still overwhelms/excites me, but I do feel content.

I haven’t fully jumped into real life quite yet. I haven’t secured a job and I still question my friend’s encouragement that I do indeed have marketable skills. But I am excited by the possibilities of being allowed to embark down a new path that is not yet chosen. I haven’t yet moved into the Community House that we have been dreaming of for over the past year, although significant steps are being taken to remedy this. Life right now, is still very much in transition and for that I am incredibly thankful. My goal right now, is to let my whole self arrive safely to the Pacific Northwest, adjust to the cold temperatures, the different food (or lack of fruit), and life without my HLP Kelly by my side at all times. It is this more complete person that I want to bring to the large decisions that are coming into focus as my eyes adjust and remove the fuzzy edged remains of my dream-like state of vision.

So, in one sense, I am back in America. And for an as of yet, still undetermined amount of time. For the first time in quite awhile I am in a place without the security of an ‘end-date,’ and that alone is an adjustment. A great deal of the past year’s conversations surrounded the concept of learning to be present and I am excited by the prospect of becoming involved in relationships, community, and life here in Portland. I’m excited by the opportunities of a new work environment, living in a home with wonderful people that I love and respect, and learning how to live daily in a world that is both familiar and foreign. I’m excited to soak up the moments of transition where life is not yet defined and decisions are still very much in process. I know that the honeymoon period will not last forever. Eventually grocery stores will no longer be exciting, driving will no longer be an adventure, and I will get used to my newfound ability to understand most everything going on around me because it is actually taking place in English – a language that I, for the most part, understand quite easily. Eventually, I hope to feel a little less like an alien… I think. Although, right now I’m so easily entertained that it is hard to imagine any of this feeling either normal or routine.

A great deal of my recent past has been riding the waves of leaving and returning. Two lives have been created that just happen to take place on opposite sides of the world, in two languages, and with two communities of amazing people. And with this, I’ve changed, those around me have changed, and the situations in which we find ourselves are ever in progress. This cycle is beautiful, challenging, and continuous. I’m daunted by the thought of re-learning how to be content, at peace, and honest with myself and others in this new environment. Huge life questions still sit around me unanswered and requiring a bit of my attention. I would eventually like to know where I will live, who will be sleeping in rooms next to me, and what I will be doing with my time and how I will be earning the money to pay for the room and the school loans I have been deferring (ignoring) for the past two years. But for now, I’m happy to just sort of sit in the presence of the unknown, absorb all the American-ness going on around me, soak up every enjoyable minute with my nieces and nephew and get to know the little people that they have become, enjoy the people that I haven’t seen and try to get to know them again over cups of coffee and Pacific Northwestern adventures in the snow, and slowly begin to contemplate how I can transition my whole self to this new way of life.

I’m not sure exactly how to end this little note except to say, that this past year has been full, fast, and amazing. I am so thankful that you all have been along with us for the ride and I am incredibly thankful that you are here to help us in our readjustments and transitions. I am not sure where we all go from here but I hope that it includes moments spent together. Wherever we are and in whatever ways life continues to present itself to us, I pray that we continue to be an intentional people, rooted in a desire to be a people of truth, love, and peace. It is a belief in these things that brought me to Thailand and back again, and it is a belief in our ultimate calling to be a people of Love that leaves me with a sense of excitement for how Love will manifest itself here and now, and what it will demand of us, in our relationships, and in the decisions we make and the paths we choose to walk. The beauty of this is that it requires nothing epic – it doesn’t require a specific geographic location or the veneer of grand service, but it is found in a humanity that believes in this truth in its most simple forms. It is this healing, redemptive, restorative Love that we worked for in Thailand and it most definitely was not always grand or epic. But I know now that in the midst of so many things that cry out for our attention, for our passion, and for our service, that it is this simple truth that will dictate either our apathy or our actions. Thank you all for giving us the opportunity to do this for the women and children of Chiang Mai. We look forward to continuing on in this journey with each of you in whatever sphere of responsibility we find ourselves and on whatever patch of dirt we are currently standing on.