update #20: shedding all that I'm not

"Maybe the journey isn't so much about becoming anything. Maybe it's about un-becoming everything that isn't really you, so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place." -- unknown

Stormy seas in Nerja, Spain

This last year plus in Spain has been challenging, eye-opening, healing, insightful, and everything in between. It was an opportunity for me to come to head with who I really am, and confidently step into that. In the most difficult moments, it was like shedding all these extra layers I'd been wearing for years.
Things I'd claimed to value over the years.
The way I wanted friends & family to see me.
The way I wanted to be perceived by anybody I met along the way.
The way I wanted to see myself.
But, when it came down to it, I broke down and couldn't continue to be this person I am not.

I recently read a blog post in which the author shared from a friend's book, "The Top Five Regrets of the Dying."

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
2. I wish I hadn’t worked so much.
3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

NUMBER ONE regret! Why do so many of us feel that we can't live out who we truly are? I understand that there are societal norms and pressures. So maybe my question should be: why can't society accept that we are all unique and should be able to freely live true to ourselves?

...

I enjoy being with people, and I do deeply value relationships, but I am not an extrovert. I am an extroverted introvert. I need healthy boundaries with limits to "people time" just as much as I need people contact nearly every day. I can't work in a setting that is entirely relational, as this job has been. I need a balance of people time and task time. I wouldn't be able to handle either extreme.

Through many personality assessments I've taken over the last 5 years, I've learned over and over that I'm balanced between task-oriented and people-oriented. But somehow I got it in my head that I'm supposed to be all about people all the time. Because I'm a caring person, I "should" be working with people all the time. Because of some other aspects of my personality, there are plenty of people-related things that I "should" be doing. That I should want to do.

Waves crashing in Nerja, Spain

But it was exhausting spending 80-90% of my weeks with people. And I thought there was something seriously wrong with me. Why was I so exhausted at the end of my weeks? Why was it painful to even think about socializing with friends on the weekends?

Last summer, I hit a breaking point finally began the process "un-becoming" all that wasn't truly me. (It's an ongoing process that will probably last a lifetime, but I feel like there has been enormous progress and major steps forward in the last 10 months.)

I began shedding this expectation I'd put on myself of being a people person. I freed myself from feeling like I had to pretend to enjoy meetings more than I enjoy analyzing things from a computer screen. I prefer engaging different parts of my brain that I hadn't been putting to use in recent years. I soon became released from these heavy chains I'd put on myself of who I thought people had wanted me to be.

The process was difficult. It still is. There are a lot of tough moments of realizing that I'm so different from all of my co-workers. I'm different from a lot of people in this line of work. And that sucks. It's incredibly lonely, and made me question what I'm even doing here. But I'm surrounded by some great and supportive people here who showed me how my differences add so much to our team that would (obviously) otherwise be lacking.
I fill in the holes that nobody else wants to do. And the best part: I ENJOY doing those things!

I have experienced great freedom in coming to understand who I am and what I can contribute. I've been able to take on some life-giving tasks, which has ultimately given me more desire & energy to spend time with people. I feel much more balanced now that I'm able to live out who I was meant to be.

I am ending this season well, able to look back and see that I've had an impact, that my time here was well-spent, and also move forward confident in who I've "un-become." The layers continue to shed with each new experience. Difficult, but always worth it.

Malaga as seen from El Palo

♥
mk

update #18 - visiting the Motherland

"the ideal is to feel at home anywhere, everywhere" -- Geoff Dyer

Feeling at home anywhere, everywhere is something I've always longed for - and I feel is a lot of what prompted me to travel as much as I have. There was a desire within me to explore all these places and feel at home in them. To be easily adaptable. To embrace living cross-culturally, and to allow parts of those cultures to seep into who I am.

Stockholm, September 2016

That's why I wanted to stay longer than a week or two in each city or country I visited.
Why I wanted to stay with locals, eat like locals, live like locals.
Why I wanted to learn their language.
Why I wanted to learn their customs and culture.

And yet, no matter how much desire I've had to learn all those things and live like locals, I have rarely felt at home in all the places I've traveled. Some cultures are too different from my home culture. Some languages are too unlike those I've studied for me to even attempt to communicate. Some customs are too foreign for me to understand.

There can be a lot of barriers to not feeling at home in a foreign place, which is what makes it so amazing when you find a place in which you do finally feel at home.

Village walks in Dalarna

Despite the fact that I spent my first 18 years living in America, I struggled to feel at home in that culture. Part of that could be moving across the country when I was 8 years old. Even though the move was still within America, there are some vast cultural differences between Pennsylvania and Washington state. I might not have been aware of it at such a young age, but I definitely went through some serious culture shock after that move. I put all of my energy into resenting my new "home" and longing for my old one.

Throughout my teens, I had several opportunities to travel to countries in Europe and Latin America. I loved each visit. It was fun communicating in a different language and practicing that skill. Though I hadn't been raised in those countries, something felt right about those places - those cultures. I felt more at home there than I felt at home in Washington.

There's always time for fika in Sweden

More than anything, Sweden felt like home. I remember being there for the first time at 18 and thinking I'd never felt so at home since leaving Pennsylvania. I spent a year in that country, in the land of my forefathers, visiting the town of my people, and exploring a bit of the beautiful countryside. I fell in love and was determined to go back, no matter how long or what it took. There was something within me calling me "home," despite not having been born or raised in Sweden.

I continued to travel and seek opportunities to get me back to Europe, but it took nearly a decade before I was back in Sweden. Many adventures between then and now, including a move to Europe, have made it more and more clear that it is difficult to be at home anywhere and everywhere. Despite my desire for that to be true, it was not easy to feel just as at home in Uganda and Nicaragua as it had been in Sweden. Even moving to Spain has had its challenges for me. I've come to realize that Sweden is a land filled with people who share so many similar values, with whom I can easily relate (since they're a country filled with introverts ;) haha), and is a huge piece of my identity.

Visiting the family home in Dalarna

In the three years (off and on) that I've lived in Spain, I've been able to visit the Motherland 3 times, each with wonderfully unique experiences. This last visit (nearly 2 months ago now, oops) brought me so much joy and made it that much harder to leave. I spent a quick weekend up north of Stockholm, visiting some relatives and seeing places of great importance to our family history.
It was beautiful in so many ways. A refreshing taste of Fall weather. Laughter-filled connections with distant cousins. Peace and quiet in cozy homes with incredible views of Swedish landscapes & lakes.

Family history & fika time

I love that place, more than words can explain.
I love my family. I love that culture. I love the green beauty. I love that it SNOWS there. I love that the days are really short in the winter and extremely long in the summer.
I love those things because they are part of who I am. I can't explain it any other way. Sweden is my home, whether or not I ever get to live there again. The Swedes are my people.

I still love to travel and learn about new cultures. But maybe this idea of being at home anywhere and everywhere has more to do with taking with me the parts of Sweden that make it home. I live in Spain for now. Who knows what the next 5, 10, 20 years hold. But what I do know is what a gift it's been to have gotten so much time learning about and experiencing Swedish culture over the years. Those are the things I can take with me, wherever I go.

Saying goodbye on a gorgeous Fall day

At the top of Lake Siljan with the lady cousins

And so, with my dalahäst, I can be at home anywhere, everywhere. ;)

Family group shot outside the dalahäst factory

♥
mk

update #17 - resting

"sometimes the most urgent and vital thing you can possibly do is take a complete rest" -- Ashleigh Brilliant

Rest is a pretty important thing that I think we too often take for granted. It's so necessary, our bodies require several hours of rest every day in order to function properly. Imagine how much we're denying ourselves if we don't find a way to *properly* rest every year, month, or week.

Lake Constance, Germany

Living in Spain, I've come to realize that even something as basic and simple as rest is valued differently in each culture. In America, it seems to be "work as hard as you possibly can for as long as you possibly can so that you can rest later... maybe" while in many European countries, they take an entire month off work every hear to vacation with their families, close shop at least one day a week (usually Sunday) to rest, and even have shorter work weeks. And it turns out all these things make for more efficient employees who have happier lives. Crazy.

So why is it still hard for me to prioritize rest?

How can I be better about fitting rest into my weekly routines?

And what does rest actually look like?

German wildflowers

For some, rest may be as simple as having a few hours to themselves to read a book, listen to some music or a podcast, go for a hike, or even go shopping. For others, it may require a lot more planning and time off in a completely different setting. I think we actually need a little bit of both - taking time to rest every week and going on a vacation. Those vacation days are meant to be used. You don't want to deny them of their purpose, do you? ;)



So a couple of months ago, I knew I was in need of a more of a "vacation rest," which meant leaving Spain. Thankfully, there are a bunch of places I can get to on a dime because of budget airlines in Europe. I chose Germany because it was close enough that travel time wouldn't eat up most of my short 3-day trip, it was a language I didn't know so I could mentally zone out when I was in coffee shops, and one of my best friends happened to be studying abroad in Munich the same weekend I was looking at going. There was basically no reason not to go.

Here are some photos from the whirlwind (yet restful) trip:

View right outside the Sbahn station - Marienplatz

Reunited after over a year!!

Munich mimosas with the best!

Taking a peaceful walk along Lake Constance

Exploring Memmingen, Germany

On this trip, rest looked like a lot of different things: getting some quality time with Laura, exploring some new places, having some quiet time to myself spent reading, and being out in nature that was GREEN.

When it was all said and done, I wished I could have stayed longer. Even just one or two more days would have been nice. But I did come back feeling pretty refreshed, which was the purpose of the trip. And so I think I will be a little more intentional about seeking out times of rest - whatever they might look like - on a more regular basis.

There will (nearly) always be work to do, but shouldn't have to go through life running on fumes. We should enjoy every aspect of life - both work and rest - and that requires a balance of the two.

So, rest up.
Go adventure. Try something new. Go for a hike. Read a book. Explore a new place.
Do something good for your body and soul.




♥
mk

update #11 - christmastime is here

Christmastime is here
Happiness and cheer
Fun for all that children call
Their favorite time of the year

Those of you who know me, know very well that this is my favorite time of the year. There's such joy, hope, and excitement in the air during this season. There's love and peace as families gather near and far to celebrate with one another.

For as long as I can remember, I've loved the Christmas season, willing it to start earlier every year (a bit to the dismay and frustration of friends and roommates over the years who have had to listen to Christmas music in October... They would have started hearing it in September, but I was careful to listen through headphones that early ;) haha).

Memories of my childhood Christmases are summed up perfectly by this next verse of the song:

Snowflakes in the air
Carols everywhere
Olden times and ancient rhymes
Of love and dreams to share

I love snow and the magic it brings. Something so simple can blanket a town in white, bringing a quiet peace and tranquility upon its inhabitants. And it's such a beautiful image of the clean and perfect [new] life we're given in Jesus, the baby whose birth we celebrate at this time of the year.

Sleigh bells in the air
Beauty everywhere
Yuletide by the fireside
And joyful memories there

Making paper snowflakes to bring
"winter" to Southern Spain

This is only the second time I won't get to spend Christmas with my family, so in some ways it doesn't feel like Christmas is actually happening this year. I am, however, taking full advantage of living in Europe and am spending my favorite holiday in my favorite country - Sweden! It's wonderful to be back in the Motherland, spending time with relatives I've met and gotten to know in the last 10 years, reunited with my man after saying goodbye in Boston almost three months ago, and celebrating Christmas with a family friend who has been part of our family Christmases for about the last 20 years.

Definitely all amazing things that are part of what I enjoy so much about this season. As much as I love and cherish my childhood Christmas memories, it's a gift to be able to make new memories in this season every year. 

Christmas time is here
We'll be drawing near
Oh, that we could always see
Such spirit through the year
Oh, that we could always see
Such spirit through the year...

As you all draw near to family and friends this holiday season, may you reflect upon the true gifts of love, hope, peace, and joy that are at the core of the meaning behind this most wonderful time of the year. Receive those gifts and be willing to give them as well. May we all carry the true Christmas spirit with us throughout the year.

Christmas cookies!

Our English Club Christmas party - plenty of
laughter and cheer that night :)

♥
mk