Missing home stinks, so I decided on Wednesday that I would stop. Or at least that it would get better, and it has, but not by the means I was trying. I told myself that if I just decide that's it's all okay, I'm just being dramatic and emotional, and I'll be fine till December, then things would change immediately. So I told myself that to get over it, that I didn't miss Colombia but I was just a mess, and that I needed to stop thinking about it. It took me just about a whole day to realize that things didn't work that way. My head was saying it was okay and that I was fine, but my heart wanted more, it wanted home. I was longing for that nostalgia to be satisfied, but I wasn't exactly doing anything about it. I knew that there was no way to get what I wanted, so I told myself it was passing phase, that I didn't want it anymore. But it was there. I wanted home, and I wanted it just as badly. I could act better, but it wouldn't go away. I felt less like an emotional train wreck, less likely to get depressed and sleep my life away, more like I had a hold on things, but I couldn't change that want to go home. So I left it there, and I'm sure it will stick around for a little while longer, but at least it doesn't have it's control on me. Realization: I'm an idiot, my head can't control my heart on this one. I can choose to be okay with having that constant heart ache, knowing that I will go home soon enough, and in the meanwhile I can choose to live on, to be happy with where I am. So my heart will hurt every once in a while, and I will always want to go home, but I can be okay with that, I can get used to that, I can trust others to be there, and I can deal with it.
Of course, as soon as this started making sense in my head we're driving into Nashville. The city lights are sprawled before me under the night sky and my heart aches. I'm so excited to see something familiar, and I find home. At least, I find potential for a home in the comfort of the sound of traffic and in the towering skyscrapers and in the cracks on the sidewalks. I am learning to love Jackson, but it is no city. And so Nashville fills my heart with happiness, but it soon turns into heartache. I don't only want this city, I want to see Bogota in that city. I want some shopkeeper to call me "mija" or hear children say "seño." I want to see the familiar faces of the indigenous and the needy, the broken and the wanting, I want my home, not just a home. But I'm okay with wanting. I decide that I'll take in the city while I can, and take it with me, let it give me a part of Bogota. I decided that if I have to live in the US for some time after college, I would head to Nashville.
And for a little change in topic. Something I've been meaning to write about and which I am still learning about. Trust. Yes, I am so cliche, that's what I'm writing about .. but it's how trust works in my life.
This is pretty much how I think I work--but things change, as we'll learn shortly.
If I don't know you, my level of trust for you has everything to do with my first impression of you. If I feel comfortable around you, I will trust you hands down till you lose that trust. If that first impression isn't so good, I won't trust you at all, until you change that, if you ever do. It's not at all hard to gain my trust.. I will be skeptical, but a few right moves and you're in. This can be a problem. If I trust you off the bat, I really trust you. I am naive and expect you to be trust-able, and so I'll act like that's how it works. I've figured that you've been good to me so far, why would that change? I fall prey to deceit a little too easily because of this. And so I am so disappointed when you show yourself not trustworthy. And I realize that I shouldn't be trusting people- I have no right to. So I lose trust in them, and I then it's hard to redeem.
And if I don't trust you at first, because of first impressions, I really don't trust you. And I won't hold you up to anything. Warning, if you show yourself trustworthy soon enough, or just seem to show this in a few occasions, I'll trust you, even if I shouldn't. So I trust too easily, and get hurt too easily too.
I get hurt because people aren't to be trusted. I was reminded of that this week. I'm not saying that I can't count on anyone; there are some people that I can count on to pull through most of the time, and I know God pulls through every time. But I trust some people with too much. I expect them to be there when I need to, because they have at some point. And they won't be there every time. Actually, some of these people were only "there, that one time" because that's just how it worked out. They weren't exactly intentional about caring for me, it happened to be convenient. So I trust people easily, and because people don't pull through, I get disheartened, and for a while, I don't trust any of them, and I find myself alone, bitter, and confused. They seemed so trustworthy, but they didn't pull through when it mattered. And then I remember that they're human. I know I'm not always going to be there for everyone, and neither will they. So I guess I shouldn't trust people quite as much as I do.
And this leads to my friendships. I trust my friends with everything.. or at least I did up till now. (I know I'm saying I should trust people less, but I'm not sure this will actually take its effect). I put so much of me into the friends that I've chosen to be intentional with, and when they don't pull through, when it seems they don't even try, it changes things and I trust them much less. They won't always come through, and I get that, I won't either, but when they see me trip and don't try to stretch their hand to reach me, and watch me fall, how can I think they tried, how can I think they cared? We've spent so much time in this friendship, and at this point I can't feel them push for it, I see them passively fall. If they can't give what's missing when I come short, how can I keep pushing? And yet, I push, because I let people take advantage of me.
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