The Good Girl's Guide to Getting Lost: A Memoir

"What happens when we lose the things that anchor us? What if, instead of grasping at something to hold on to, we pull up our roots and walk away? Instead of trying to find the way back, we walk deeper and deeper into the woods, willing ourselves to get lost. In this place where nothing is recognizable, not the people or the language or the food, we are truly on our own. Eventually, we find ourselves unencumbered by the past or the future. Here is a fleeting glimpse of our truest self, our self in the present moment. After that, maybe we can finally go home--or maybe not."

"What I found on the road was a tiny piece of myself, the one I kept unknowingly shuttered for so long in order to play the many roles I thought were mine. It was no cyclone, but these past few years I had survived my own personal disasters and realized I was strong enough. I was on the other side. In this new place, I could hear the whispering voice inside my head growing louder, my voice--not those of my parents or teachers...--telling me to live my life without fear or worry or doubt that nothing was going according to plan, as though such a plan ever existed in the first place." 

A Good Girl's Guide to Getting Lost, p. 286-287

By Rachel Friedman 

Published 2011

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If you're worrying about your place in the world... 

don't. 

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“Trust whatever He has for you. It will be better than anything you can plan for yourself.”

—	Francis Chan (Crazy Love)

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The Perfectly Bearable Anonymity of Being

"When a society is rich, its people don't need to work with their hands; they can devote themselves to activities of the spirit. We have more and more universities and more and more students. If students are going to earn degrees, they've got to come up with dissertation topics. And since dissertations can be written about everything under the sun, the number of topics is infinite. Sheets of paper covered with words pile up in archives sadder than cemeteries, because no one ever visits them, not even on All Souls' Day. Culture is perishing in overproduction, in an avalanche of words, in the madness of quantity."

The Unbearable Lightness of Being, p. 103
By Milan Kundera
Published 1984

I haven't read this book, but it's high on the list of the many I want to. Regarding the book as a whole, I have nothing to base my opinions on besides this quotation, which will leave me either misinterpreting or simply reinventing his thoughts in my own way. 

Freedom or paralysis is inevitable when realizing the daunting "madness of quantity" in this world. For me, paralysis came first. I've been really hung up on this recently. I believe we underestimate the sheer quantity of everything out there; we know, but we don't truly believe. 

The madness of quantity keeps going on and on infinitely in all areas of life. No matter how diligently I aspire toward any specific goal, I will always be met with competition. I will always find someone farther ahead who knows more and can do better.  

Freedom, in its brilliant simplicity, was when I realized...that doesn't matter. In fact, it's better that way. 

The world became a richer place, in my opinion. It's like listening to music just to listen to it, without caring who wrote it, or who's singing it. Instead, to just take in the pleasurable ebbing and flowing of the harmonies and melodies as they collide, creating sounds that miraculously communicate meaning to me.   

Fame is the modern equivalent of immortality. To be heard, seen, or recognized--anywhere--prevents one from disappearing altogether. American society is built on a competitive culture, a culture that is spreading dangerously fast. Recognition, in whatever form, is just another part of the game. 

Yet, there is basis for wanting to be discovered. As Kundra pointed out, so much has been lost due to sheer numbers and inescapable anonymity. Not all can be famous.

I would argue there is absolute freedom in anonymity. When I can embrace my wisp-like existence, I am left content. It is true, my highly time-invested senior thesis will be buried in a cemetery of countless others after next year. There's not much I can do about it but embrace the process, learn, grow, stretch myself, and not worry about its impact on the world.  

Perhaps this is how I would define art (of life and other things): the creation of something for it's own sake, not your own or anyone else's. 

When my expectations dissolved, so did the person I was "meant to be". Somehow, this mysterious presumption had adhered itself to the back of my mind like superglue. I was convicted I really needed to go out with a bang. As a result, I spent a lot of time wearing myself out and feeling disappointed, guilty, and ashamed. Inevitably, I was failing (already!). 

Accepting one's mediocrity shouldn't equate to depression and purposelessness. Quite the contrary, actually. I strive to forget about myself. When I am taken out of the picture, there is nothing left. Nothing, except a pure, translucent reflection of the real Creator Himself. He is the noun, I am the verb. 

Dear reader, I encourage you (as well as myself), to enjoy the act of doing not being; of writing, not being a writer; of running, not being a runner. When the verb becomes a noun that identifies who you are, it changes your perspective. It confuses you. It limits you. Are you a mother, or are you mothering? Do you see the difference? One confines into a subjective definition (one that should be only His), the other compels into a developing action (one that can be yours). 

Do you define your actions, or do your actions define you? 

The former is merely a perception of who you believe you are; the latter is the reality everyone else actually sees.  

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All In a Day's Run

Since coming home from Asia, running has been my escape. The art of running is challenging and (contrary to popular belief) enjoyable to me. I run to push my physical limitations. I suppose that sounds trite and romantic, I suppose it rather is.

Today I ran farther than I ever have in my collegiate career. I'm becoming an addict of longer distances. This run was a long, long stretch; plenty long for me anyway.

The route I chose took me into town. Somewhere between mile seven and eight I came upon a mother and her son biking from the library. As I was catching up to them, I noticed they stopped at an intersecting road off the main drag. There was no stop sign or approaching car in sight.  

In the state I'm in, restless, craving adventure, wanting to get away, feeling very uninspired, I thought what a shame this was, those two, stopping for invisible traffic. I looked past them at all the other intersecting roads ahead and wondered if they would stop for every single one. Really, how ridiculous.

I began to catch up to them (they were, after all, stopping at all the little intersections). As I passed them, I nodded and smiled, doing my best not to rub in the obvious fact. The little boy, upon seeing me in his periphery, exploded into vigorous pedaling. We were side by side for a couple of seconds, but not long enough for me to think of anything to say. We came upon another little intersection and without hesitation the boy breezed through it.

Yet, only seconds later, he looked over his shoulder toward his mom and slowed down. Being passed by a runner is a blow to anyone's self-esteem, especially atop a bike (with only two wheels nonetheless), but his mother hadn't picked up her speed. She might've even stopped at the intersection.

He disappeared behind me.

I felt a bit sorry for him. Yet, in a lot of ways I could relate to him.

I have (with forced patience) been complying to the expectations set for me. Go to college. Be a good student. Get a degree. And like little intersections off the highway, I can see the expectations ahead: Get a good job. Find the right husband. Have kids...then forget about the job. Be a good Christian (what does that mean, by the way?).

Like that six or seven year-old kid, I'm young. I have a lot to learn. He might have questioned the necessity of stopping, but if one's mother thought one must stop at all the crossings, then that is exactly what one must do. For all these years I've been doing the same. Still, there is a point when you can accept control over your own life, you don't need to keep stopping.

Society's pressure is like a mother with good intentions. "Do this to be safe. Protect yourself. Always be cautious. You need this." I've been questioning the validity of that message. I question the American circle of life. Many others do as well.

We might question it, but we go along with it because we can't see any other workable plan. Even though there might not be anything wrong with this cycle, I just don't think it's a one-size-fits-all type of deal. Just because I'm an American, doesn't necessarily mean I want to meet all the American expectations.

Whatever it is that will finally set me over the edge, I hope I'll have enough conviction of mind to keep going with it, to keep breaking societies rules (when the time is right), and not slow down.

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The Glass Castle: Memoir of A Woman Much Stronger Than Glass

It's now the dead of summer. With summer follows a bit of space in our schedules (we hope, anyway). If you're looking for a good summer read, consider The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls.

For me, the book provided more than mere entertainment. Jeannette's is a story we could all learn from. Growing up far below the poverty line, she learned how to become self-efficient, smart, and resilient to whatever life threw her way; and let me tell you, life chucked her some pretty nasty dirt.

Here's a short summary from Goodreads, you can find the rest at: Goodreads.com/The Glass Castle

Jeannette Walls grew up with parents whose ideals and stubborn nonconformity were both their curse and their salvation. Rex and Rose Mary Walls had four children. In the beginning, they lived like nomads, moving among Southwest desert towns, camping in the mountains. Rex was a charismatic, brilliant man who, when sober, captured his children’s imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and above all, how to embrace life fearlessly. Rose Mary, who painted and wrote and couldn’t stand the responsibility of providing for her family, called herself an “excitement addict.” Cooking a meal that would be consumed in fifteen minutes had no appeal when she could make a painting that might last forever. More

While turning through the memories of Jeannette's childhood, I couldn't help my jealous thoughts. Perhaps, never having lived in poverty, I'm like the anxious house cat trying to sneak its way out the back door, oblivious to the harsh realities of the wild.

Nevertheless, the pages of Jeannette's story stirred me deeply, as all good books should. Her memoir led me to a simple fact: security isn't everything.

Security is favorable, it's what we are conditioned to desire. It's practical, too. Nobody likes falling out of a car zooming down the highway and waiting for hours with a bloody nose and gravel-torn skin, debating whether daddy will actually stop and turn around for you (one of Jeannette's memories).

Yet, with too much security, something within our human soul suffers, I'm convicted of it. People become bored, and as a result, boring.

With that being said, life is not a matter of what we do, but how we think. Living is entirely a mindset.

You can be as poor as dirt, never have a real place to call home, or new clothes, or consistent meals, or reliable parents, or friends, and still feel content and okay about life. That might seem like a stretch, but it's Jeannette's story.

Her childhood goes to show that some of the richest, most brilliant experiences of life can still came from a life in complete poverty.

We all need to remember that.

As we work hours and hours at our nine to five jobs, remember. Remember that happiness and fulfillment have little connection to the zeros behind our paychecks. As we save and save for that new car, bigger house, better school, remember. Providing for a family consists of more than a roof and a weekly grocery list and the latest technology.

More importantly, providing for a family means investing in their souls. It means taking your children outside and looking up at the stars together, explaining the names and stories behind the constellations and asking each one of those excited little faces to pick out their favorite, because Christmas presents will come and go but stars will last for lightyears.

Providing for a family means showing your children they don't need the weight of possessions, the confirmation of other's approval, or the comfort of a really nice home. Instead, providing for them means showing (not just telling) them life has a lot more to offer. It means challenging their thinking, inspiring them with the way you choose to live, and truly believing in the potential that they can only reach on their own; this is the rutty, more authentic beauty of provision.

I wouldn't suggest becoming an alcoholic, or losing yourself in your own dreams, or refusing to work, or neglecting to feed your children. I wouldn't suggest running from the police, or laying in bed for days, or stealing your kid's grocery money, or leaving and never saying when or if you'll come back.

Rather, I would suggest, no matter who you are, what you do, or the stage of life your family is in, to intentionally be aware of the way you think. The truest forms of joy and fulfillment lie just above your shoulders, a little behind your eyes, and squarely between your ears. Dear Reader, it's the simple, little things in life that produce life's fullness; things like intimacy, love, and peace. All things, I will modestly point out, that have nothing to do with your social or financial status, or the quality of your lawn.

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Jeannette Walls

Jeanette Walls - BIOGRAPHY

Jeannette Walls was born in Phoenix, Arizona. Her parents moved the family around the southwest before settling for a time in Welch, West Virginia. It was in West Virginia, as she entered her teens, that she was often mistreated. At age 17 she moved to New York City. With the help of part-time jobs, she eventually entered Columbia University’s Barnard College, where she graduated with honors.

She had come to love journalism while working on her high school newspaper so she tried working as a gopher for New York Magazine while she attended college. She eventually moved to the business section and ended up a news reporter for USA Today. Her first gossip column was written once again at New York Magazine. She moved on to Esquire Magazine’s gossip column and worked at MSNBC as an online columnist and television segment reporter for eight years (leaving in 2007), before deciding to turn her full attention to writing books. She now lives in Virginia and is married to another writer, John Taylor. 

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“We are not rich by what we possess but by what we can do without.” 
― Immanuel Kant
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What You'll Learn in Asia About Missions

There are over 7 billion people in the world. 1.344 billion in China alone. That's over one thousand million people populating one country, the vast majority living in the eastern half. So what do you learn after living as a foreigner for 4 months in China—and another month in Thailand—altogether five months in Asia? 

This life is not your story.

Francis Chan said it well: you are an extra in Somebody else's movie. You're that face in the middle of the crowd, slightly to the left, in that two-second scene half way through. That's you.

When the realization hits you, it's hard to figure out what matters. It’s hard to continue striving after your goals and expecting great things from yourself.

You’ll realize it’s the little things that get to you. It’s hearing another language, or multiple languages, being spoken all around you and suddenly feeling so small because you had forgotten that the majority of the world doesn’t understand you, and you don't understand them. You’ll come face to face with hundreds of people every day. The faces will all begin to look the same to you. You start being unable to tell the difference between one person and the next. Then, not only do you feel small, you feel alone.

“Where am I? What am I doing here?” You ask the questions in a general manner, but your uncertainty goes deeper. 

It’s the little things that get to you. It’s not knowing how to interact. It’s constantly questioning yourself. You're always questioning--the insecurity never stops but just clings to you like a scared little kid. You are a kid, you realize. Something about this place breaks you down. 

You'll learn that if you want to go into missions, that's great, you could go. But you cannot, under any circumstances, no matter how great the opportunity, go to prove to yourself that you're devoted enough, or that you're worthy of His love, or that becoming a missionary reflects a more meaningful, sacrificial life. 

Doing international missions to impress God is like scraping your knees a couple of hours before seeing the president. You put bandages on, and when you go to meet him, you take them off and say, "Look, Mr. President of the United States, I have these bandages for you, that's my blood." 

You would never do that. That's disgusting.  

God doesn't want your used bandaids. God wants you. He doesn't have a measuring stick where deeds are assessed based on merit. That's what you do. God doesn't care if you rescue the entire population of China from poverty. To Him, that's just another dirty bandaid. 

If in those five months you start to understand your smallness, the surface of His infinite existence also begins to dawn on you. Perhaps you weren't able to glimpse the latter without first feeling the former so thoroughly. 

If you want to make a difference in the world, identify yourself with God until you don't have to look up in the sky anymore to a strange, abstract idea—to the impossible concept of the Divine. He's not "up there" somewhere like the aliens. He's within you...you and every ordinary minute of your life. 

You don't know much about Jesus before he was 30, but you do know He was no less Christ in those years. You are called to be like Christ; Christ in all 33 years of His life. He was faithful in the ordinary. 

So don't hold out on someday. Don't plan on going out and becoming a great missionary...someday. When you find joy in what you're doing now, in the person He is manifesting Himself in now—this very ordinary moment—eternity begins. When eternity begins, God is known, His purpose is heard, and the world shakes.

Eternity begins in the mundane things, in washing dishes, in cleaning bedrooms, in saying "I love you" and really meaning it; in watching the rain fall down the windowpane and thinking, Wow, that's amazing.  

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"also for those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them...so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me."  —Jesus (John 17:20-23) 

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The Way Back

— A journal entry —

Saturday, May 25 2013

I’m in the Chiang Mai airport. I already feel worlds away from Thailand. I wasn’t expecting to become so attached; I love the people, the culture, and the way of life. I cannot forget these experiences and faces and this country I have fallen in love with. 

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The world looked like a sepia photograph through my sunglasses as I walked down Huay Kaew road dragging my luggage behind me. I was decked in Thai attire—my favorite baggy shorts and blue tribal-patterned tank. I hailed my last songthaew and threw my suitcase into the back. I wasn’t in a good mood. I didn’t want to leave.

As I looked out the back of the songthaew, memories of Thailand came and went like the shops lining the street. I remembered meeting my classmates on the first day of the course and having lunch in a Chinese restaurant. I remembered the Thai barista at her little coffee stand. She always put too much ice and not enough coffee, but for some reason I kept going back.

The songthaew passed my favorite noodle restaurant where I went almost everyday for soup or Pad Thai. I'd miss that place. My eyes eventually wondered up the mountain; I remembered all the times I ran there. I never wanted to go at first, so ungodly early in the morning on an empty stomach, but when I started I didn’t want to turn around. On the mountain, I felt so strong and free and hardcore. 

Yet, it wasn’t the mountain that had won me over to this place. Most of all, I knew I would miss the children. This realization caught me by surprised. I had never considered myself good with kids, I usually politely tried to avoid them. Still, the children in Thailand were different. I remembered their innocent faces. I loved teaching them. They were endearing; their eyes lit up when they knew the right answers to my questions. They wanted to learn. Teaching them was fulfilling. 

As I sat in the back of that truck, watching the familiar streets pass by and disappear forever, I told myself over and over that I was coming back, I needed to come back. I knew I would have options after college, but this was what I wanted to do. I wanted to teach English. 

Despite my gloomy mood, I had to smile when I remembered the last words of advice Kristina, a fellow classmate, gave me before we parted ways: “No matter what they tell you, don’t get married or knocked up. There’s too many places to see and experience for that.” It was heartfelt advice. I knew marriage and children were adventures in themselves, yet perhaps her words were true for me. 

When the songthaew finally pulled into the airport, more memories flooded into me. The first day I arrived in Chiang Mai at this exact location I was so overwhelmed. There were so many unknowns—and I was completely alone. I had grown in the past month, I realized.

The world was a different place. 

View of Chiang Mai from the Mountain

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Getting Over More Than Just Jet Lag

Now is the season of graduations and weddings; with these milestones come a readjustment from familiarity into something new and completely different. Change is an absolute of life; regardless of circumstances, we know life never stops changing. Right now, I am trying to figure out how to move from something new and completely different (traveling Asia for 5 months), to settling back into the familiar.

Since being back, there are aspects about small-town America I have come to appreciate. Below is a list of comforting things about the U.S. you also may be taking for granted:

1. Understanding and being understood by everyone - yes, English!
2. Grunting, pointing, and charades are unnecessary in daily life
3. The ability to read...everything
4. Drinking water straight from the faucet
5. An expanded wardrobe
6. Friends and family being awake the same time you are
7. Understanding the rules of traffic
8. No bones in your meat / knowing what kind of meat you're eating
9. Dirt roads / green, wide-open fields / clean, fresh air
10. Actually waiting in a line
11. Putting your feet on furniture
12. Blending in with the people around you
13. The general understanding that running is a common and acceptable recreational activity - something not unusual or worthy of overt staring

Also, here is a list of things about Asia that I already miss:

1. Public transportation
2. New experiences / the adventure aspect
3. Thai food - authentic curry!!
4. Job opportunities
5. Milk tea
6. Cheap, real fruit smoothies
7. Unpredictability of daily life
8. Successfully ordering mocha-flavored ice cream in Mandarin at McDonald's
9. Mentally converting Chinese yuan or Thai baht into USD and feeling very satisfied with how little I spent
10. Meeting other expats with intriguing stories

The strangest thing about change is we are often unaware that it's constantly taking place. I didn't feel like I was growing or changing in Asia—I was just living. Yet, when I was finally taken out of the new and unfamiliar, I found that even the previously known and understood had changed, or at least my perception of it.

I was expecting to be mildly depressed after returning home. I anticipated that the transition back into normal American life would be quite difficult...if not boring. Those feelings haven't set in yet. Granted, it hasn't even been a week.

However, I think my worldview has changed, which might save me from my fears of disheartenment. I shared a moment of this realization in my last post (Lost in Chiang Mai).

A good word to describe my life during and after traveling: deflated.

It's the little, mundane, pointless, insignificant, annoying trivialities that make up the majority of our lives. Yet, these meaningless moments are where purpose is found, we can't escape them, no matter where we are.

We don't need to make the mundane magnificent, we just need to acknowledging that the mundane is the reality of life. There's no need to search for something better; instead, we should stop for once and say, I want to be in this moment. I want to be present in the moments, not because they are thrilling or captivating to the imagination, but because they are life—they are what it means to be human—not to simply exist, but to appreciate one's own existence.

Even the most exciting experiences will eventually become ordinary. Excitement is not enough. The human condition requires more.

Change—whether it's graduating, a death in the family, taking off your socks, getting married, travelling to Europe, or replacing your toothbrush—constantly takes place. Even if we don't like the change at first, we know it's in the discomfort of the unknown that we grow.

We also grow in the small moments of life. Everything was once unfamiliar. No matter how great or small our experiences might be, the unfamiliar eventually must become familiar. As a result, our world constantly stretches outward; the small ways are just as important as the big ones.

I suppose that's where I'm at right now: acknowledging the fact that I don't need to be far away or engaged in stimulating experiences to grow. Even the magnificent becomes mundane eventually. Also, in the mundaneness, there is still so much to learn—it's just harder and less fashionable.

“How strange that the nature of life is change, yet the nature of human beings is to resist change. And how ironic that the difficult times we fear might ruin us are the very ones that can break us open and help us blossom into who we were meant to be.” ― Elizabeth Lesser

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