Secret

For me, keeping a secret is exhausting. I love to talk things through, analyze, hear others' opinions, and share ideas. So keeping things in is difficult. Of course when it must be done, I do... but it's rather draining... especially when it is an exciting secret that I know will bring much joy to someone I love. Yet for months and months I've had to hold it in until it was for sure.

A huge part of my lack of blogging lately has been due to this Secret. The fear of letting it out before the right time was agonizing. I had to make sure not to give hints anywhere. Even though I was able to tell a few people, I was paranoid that it would get out, fly around, and get to the very person I was hiding it from.

This Secret is now finally ready to fly free... the time has come. It is right. And it was her Christmas gift.

Nagyi's. My grandma.

The Secret? I'm going to Hungary for the second half of my student teaching. Writing these words in such an affirmative way almost makes me want to go back, delete them, and delete this whole post... I've been hiding it for so long.

I started looking into this nearly a year ago. I was hoping to get an alternative placement for student teaching in Budapest, but there were many hoops to jump through.

This whole semester has been a long, drawn out, emotional up and down process that left me feeling very tossed about. I knew it was out of my hands, but that if the door opened I would definitely leap at the opportunity. The more I talked about Hungary, the more my heart grew in its desire to go there. And the more this desire grew, the more I felt like a misfit here... not because I'm so strange, or (not necessarily) because I'm unAmerican, but just because there's a whole different side of me that I'm not letting thrive.

I suppose such is the life of any Third Culture Kid (TCK)... anyone who grows up between two cultures where neither culture truly feels like "home." I don't expect Hungary to feel like home... especially since I'm only going for five weeks. But the fact that I have the opportunity to explore what life might be like there... and to stop repressing that side of me... I think it will be more than great. 

Even though I desperately wanted to tell Nagyi about every step of the process, I knew it would crush her if it didn't work out. So I kept it in, hiding it from her always, dodging the question when she began mournfully asking when she'll see me next.

I didn't find out until just a week or so before we left for Christmas break. By that point I had pretty much given up hope. I would pray feebly here and there... but most of my fervency was gone. I was worn out, settling in to the idea that I'll be here all year, and starting to list all the reasons why that will make me more content than leaving.

and then. WHAM.

An email from my adviser. An increased heart rate. A short gasp. Another read-through of the email. A squealed outburst. A shushing of my roommate (who happened to be asking me whether her outfit had too much blue in it). A shared excitement. A phone call home. A whirlwind morning.

My ticket is bought. My heart is excited... and I keep seeing my made-up faces of the 6th, 7th, and 9th graders I'll be teaching... so different from my original plans, but so much better, I think, than I could have ever thought.

This was Nagyi's Christmas present. Every Christmas we have what we call the "csúcs" gift (the highest of the high, the peak, the pinnacle, the max). It's the big one everyone's waiting for. Usually everyone has one. But since nobody knows what everyone got each other, nobody knows whose should go last. Luckily everyone who knew agreed with me that this truly was the highest of the high, the csúcs. 

For the past few years I have given Nagyi a scrapbook of the year... updating her on various events she was too far away to participate in. This year I didn't have time to make one, but I figured my gift would make up for it. I took an old scrapbook, made a new scrapbook page printing out my ticket itinerary. Then I attached it to some crafty teacher-ish scrapbook paper and stuck it a few pages in. When she opened it she of course thought she was getting the usual scrapbook and she was quite excited.  

When she got to the important page, she glanced at it, was confused, and flipped past it, announcing that she didn't understand, still cruising through the pictures in the scrapbook.  

We then had to tell her to go back... and to read what the page said very carefully...

Meanwhile, we waited for it to dawn on her. At first all she saw was "trip to Budapest" and thought I had printed out her tickets for her to go back home! I had to implore her to look at the dates and think about what they could mean. 

 

I finally had to tell her just enough, since I realized that this was so far outside of her expectations that she didn't even dare to think or hope that could be the case...

Through a few tears she explained her absolute shock ... but her joy... and as she continued to talk about the implications, her joy continued to spread to all of us.

What a beautiful Christmas!

When Class is Over...

Well.

This is it.

I just finished my last official class at Grace.

...
...
...

My 16+ years as a student are (almost) over. Which is odd. This is all I have known, it seems. The last time I didn't have to sit in class was perhaps when I was three.

And yet... I must love it or something, since I'm off to go be a teacher for the rest of life (hopefully).

I don't have profound thoughts at the moment. Simply gratitude.

An immense gratitude for the opportunity of learning I have been given. Going to college is not normal for 90% of the world. Neither is finishing high school, for that matter. And yet... I have been so blessed to spend years with my nose in books, learning, studying, reading, writing... I take it for granted. I complain about the assignments and the homework and sitting through class or even lectures. Projects of course are stressful (I'm still not entirely done with one of them), tests require obscene amounts of studying for a relatively small amount of time to prove what I know...

But gratitude. How many people have truly gotten to do what I have done?

I love that even after over sixteen years of school, I still love it. But that's because I have had amazing teachers, mentors, professors, educators, and parents (yes... my very first teachers) who have seen education as more than simply filling a bucket. They have ignited in me a flame for learning, for knowledge, for growth, for wrestling with new ideas.

I used to hate the critical thinking questions in my textbooks. Even in class discussion, I would cringe at questions that required more thought. It was so much easier to just give the simple answer and move on. But my teachers did not let me stop with my simple answer. They challenged my thinking. They pushed me further.

This semester... yes, this final semester... I am finally beginning to understand what a huge impact these people have made on me. I'm so grateful for the people who challenged me in every season of life. It may have been a simple "why" when I was ready to quit writing and turn in my paper. It might have been a "show me where you find that," or a "how do you know" or a "is it really that way." These questions were infuriating at first. But now they're invigorating.

I am so grateful for Grace. For the classes I've had to take, the issues I have been forced to grapple with, the days where I sat, head in my hands, moaning because the questions were too difficult and I no longer knew what I thought. For professors who smile at my answers... then smirk and ask me to consider from a different perspective. For bosses who have seen my strengths, but also my weaknesses and have intentionally found ways to help me develop those weaknesses into strengths.

I am just so thankful. Thankful to anyone that has walked with me, prodded me, pushed me, challenged me. And I'm thankful for those who will continue to do so as I begin to do the same for others.

The Illusion of Busy

Once again finals week hits... campus is filled with bleary-eyed students clutching coffee... or anything with some boost of caffeine.

Everyone's in a hurry, rushing through the misty wind, looking down, avoiding puddles, pulling coats a little tighter around themselves. The lingering, talking, laughing is slowing and everyone is simply focusing on the task at hand: get done and go home.

And I begin to realize my problem...

I make every week into finals week. For me, everything is a stress-escalating, no-time-for-anything, moaning-and-groaning-about-everything-I-have-to-do crisis like most people's finals week.

My default setting is stress. As bad as this is, I often find my worth or importance in the things I accomplish. So if I'm always stressing and everything is a crisis, then I begin to think that the thing I'm doing is somehow really important... even if it is a pointless task. Slowly, I let the tiniest things become the most important... inhibiting my relationships with people.

As the semester draws to a close and two of my closest friends are graduating and getting married, I'm beginning to look up and realize that some of the things I've been stressing about are not worth the time. Ending well and enjoying these relationships for as long as they are close are what truly matter right now. Of course school is important. But sometimes... relationships matter MORE.
I've been learning this since freshman year. And still I'm a ball of stress... grimacing when people "intrude" on my "get things done" time, because "I'm so busy."

The worst part is that as my mind spins with my typical load of stress, when I sit down to work on my to-do list... all I can think about is how MUCH I have to do. Not just homework. Life. The terrifying question: What are you doing after college? How are you going to pay for that? Where are you living next year? student teaching. change. friends getting married. graduation. a seemingly infinite amount to process. And so then I dink around. Five minutes. 10 minutes. an hour. three. And then I don't even know where the day went. But I'm still sitting at my computer, staring at a menacing, blinking cursor below "Lesson Plan Day #1." I know it will get done. I just simply can't bring my mind to focus on the task at hand. But I continue to tell people I'm busy.

Those who know me best begin to pick up on this "illusion of busy" that I paint for myself. I remember several conversations that went something like... you know what, I think you enjoy being stressed. Even if you didn't have a care in the world you'd find something to stress about. I laughed when it was originally said. But I hear it echo once more in my ears, and I begin to realize that it's true.

Allowing myself to be stressed is giving in to the lie that says that my worth comes from being busy. That my worth comes from what I get done. So the more I make it known that I'm busy, the more I declare my worth... right?

That's why I love grace. Because grace doesn't care what you do. In fact, grace declares that you can't do anything... but extends love and acceptance anyway... regardless of what you do.

When I continue to keep a cluttered mind with stress gnawing on every corner of my soul, I'm not living a grace-filled life. I cannot extend grace to others. I cannot bring rest to others. In fact, I am rejecting grace... rejecting freedom... and once again crawling into the cage of legalism, stress, and bondage.

The thing about creating an illusion of busy for myself is that ... it's just that...  an illusion. false. And when I finally come to terms with the fact that I'm really not as busy as I make myself out to be, I also have to come to terms with the fact that I'm not worth anything because of what I do. No matter how hard I work and how hard I try, I cannot improve my worth. Or devalue it. Because my worth isn't based on what I do. It's based on Whose I am.

I'm thankful for those precious, grace-filled people who continue to stand at my side and offer me truth (even when it hurts), despite knowing that my working, achieving, stress-filled tendencies still haven't kicked the bucket.