Facades, Inadequacy and a kitchen table conversation

I'm in this place with people I completely sympathise with and am ready to love entirely. So are they. And I am part of another place where people try to be friendly. Some of them succeed, some don't. Homesickness is a funny thing. I am, after today, more homesick for Bangor than India at the moment, I do believe! But then I miss India. I am honoured to be a part of OU, but wondering if it just could be that all the offhandedness is only imagined. It is not snobbish - but it is not protective or helpfully forthcoming either. It is very hard to be away from home and on your own, and not have people coming forward to help or look after you. I am finally required to grow up. Just when I was afraid of growing old. But people are people. Everywhere.

And I do feel inadequate as I have absolutely no idea how to begin and no idea if I can ask how either. It doesn't feel like I can - or sound like it. It is a beautiful city as I remember it. My friends here are lovely - they are so warm and welcoming. Will I find friends who like me for me - or will I have to morph into this posh fashion-swinging brain-box.... I could try - I wouldn't succeed or at least not very well. Let's face it - I am inadequate. God isn't. And let's face it - I knew I was taking all this on before I came here. I miss the fatherly EW, the motherly PM, the hundred little family things of BCC, the completely open friendship and little-brother person's role GJ played and just the number of people I could call on if I didn't want to wallow in some emotional warp. Yes, I can call on people here but they wouldn't know what I need because they don't know me. These people at home here though know I need God's love and we give and take of it - and for that I am infinitely grateful.

I am here and I have no idea how to begin. But I will do it.

Added to what needs no addition is my mother wondering if I will find Prince Charming. I can't afford a Prince Charming and spending quality time with royalty at the moment ;D but even if he were to show up, I don't want one if God doesn't want that as His first option. And I am worried about how much our desires may be able to skew our vision for where we're going... Besides it's hard enough getting over imagined Princes Charming, he he... But seriously - hard enough getting over hurting Princes not-quite-charming or charming-but, and then ripping oneself apart now and then to see if you really really do have a 'but' in the picture and then ripping oneself apart because you had to rehash it for the nth time and not realise how happy you are and that there is no need to have felt guilty in the first place. I think conscientiousness can be a hard driver sometimes... And there's a difference between your conscience and conscientiousness if the Lord's in it.

Thank you because it is lovely to have this conversation with all of us - mum, Sunflower Girl, Grafx, Ta'fxkz (heh they rhyme!), Dinesh, Greeta, Switchblade... hmmmm dunno if anyone else would on the offchance read my blog but that seems to cover it - and you listening to it, Lord. Thanks for chipping in too.

26th September 2007

Couldn't publish this on the day I wrote it:

Might never get a chance to blog from anywhere other than India and the UK - well maybe not from Kuwait anyway :D. Uh huh that's where I am at the moment sitting with all these businessmen florid from the sun and mostly shaven-headed, for pretty much the same reasons I guess, and these sheiks florid from just natural colour and health, tapping away at their laptops probably checking the news from the stock market or something! I'm just glad I can talk to my folks for free ;) - he he, and I don't have any of the local currency and I jolly well am not changing as much as they say I've got to to make one phone call or two.

Kuwait looks pretty neat from an aerial view - a bit more man-made than most countries from air but in very good taste I must say. Neat little inlays and driveways, yes driveways, into the sea and back. First time I'm landing over a desert area. Arid, yes, and much less populated than I expected but very beautiful. The gulf is gorgeous-looking.

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It's a bit strange, my homesickness this time. I had the usual pre-homesick feelings and everything. But I didn't cry as much except when I thought about it. Maybe I had much more time to think before. This has happened very fast and not quite expected a few months ago. Okay, I had a couple months' notice but I'm sorta slow. Stupid Tassi didn't come to say bye - she can't be woken up for any money... Of course she came and chattered afterwards - but heck what's the point? LOL - 2:30 am found me weepily walking into Shadow's and saying 'Bye, sweetheart, I do love you, you know'... to a - ermmm - shadow. Not mine though - not by the light or by the species. She was under the stairs where I found her later - only this time I was giggling like an idiot.

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Prince-ah's thingummyjig no 2 has dropped!! After like a year and a half - about a year later than it should have. But hey, who's complaining... And Becki and amma did call Abraham and Sarah in as witness ;D.

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Missing amma and appa somewhat terribly now - moved from '-ish' to 'definitely', paragraph by paragraph! Looking forward to going to OU though although I'm pretty nervous so that I don't know where to start with being concerned about things. I'm also pretty sure there's no need to be despite what things look like. CD said something like there will be storms, when Jesus is in the boat. But yeah, that's the good thing about those storms, hey?

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I am, I have concluded, simply NOT cut out of business class flight material. The man came over with a tray full of croissants and Danish pastries and I was quite sure I wanted the half-sweet, pineapple one on the top. So I smiled a business-class hopefully-blase smile and went and picked the croissant with my hand instead of waiting for the guy to use the tongs he'd so skillfully covered in a towel over his arm! What'm I supposed to do? I was deprived of proper butlers during my formative years!

And then I woke up with a hurting nose probably dry from the inflight temperature, and also went and sniffled my nose in the wet towel in desperation as I couldn't find my tissue and couldn't leave my seat!

It would have to be the law that the guy in the aisle row was as suave and chilled out as he possibly could be. And here I was thinking I would be the ice princess to any commoner who smiled at me...

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Please pray that I will be able to stand in His perfect will and have my head about me with the research and everything else.