About: jane
Name:jane
2008-02-14 13:29:27
http://
- Profile
- I was born in New Zealand but moved to Botswana when I was just over a year old. My parents were missionaries in Botswana. I attended an international day school. We stayed there for 6 1/2 years before moving to England. I lived in England until the age of 13 before moving back to New Zealand. I currently reside in China where I teach at an international school.
Posts by jane:
Recently, I found a journal entry that I wrote on my way to China. An interesting statement I said about myself was that I have learned not to share myself with others because it hurts me. Sharing of yourself is not good because it makes you vulnerable and people won’t respect you. Let me give you a bit of history. When I lived in New Zealand (before moving to China) I would often blurt out things about myself that though they weren’t that personal, were too personal considering how long I had known the person. I guess it stems from wanting to be wanted. Basically my attempt to connect with others. I didn’t know what a long term friendship looked like. From my perspective, I would look at other friendships (even my mother’s), see the closeness they had and expect it to happen with me within a minute of knowing someone! I jumped the gun!
So, to go back to my journal entry that I found, I had basically made a pledge to never disclose anything personal about myself. I was a closed book. My goal was to protect myself and save myself pain and embarrassement. This would make me look strong, tough, well put together. Feelings are for wimps I believed. Get over it already! These were thoughts that plagued my mind.
How wrong I was! Over the years that I have lived in China (this is now year 6 for me), I have learned the balance between exposing myself, but at that same time viewing thought-sharing as a wholesome, thought-provoking, non-threating concept. I have still been cautious, in that I have waited a while, assessed the sitution and people before delving head first into what really matters in life. The fact that I couldn’t keep away from sharing my inner-most thoughts, proves that it isn’t bad.
November 13, 2008 | Filed Under
Blog |
3 Comments Why do I always think that I my life is on hold because I am not married and I am not living in my passport country? These thoughts constantly wander through my head. Just yesterday I asked myself, what is like to be an adult? Well, I am an adult. I am 32 years old. However, sometimes I don’t consider myself an adult because I am not married. Neither am I living a normal life - driving to work…paying the mortgage etc. But, this is my adult life. Why do I correspond adulthood with marriage and living a nomadic life of driving to an office and working there all day? I mean, I was raised overseas. My parents didn’t have the typical job that most parents have. We lived in close proximity to the people we worked with. Then in England, in my mind’s eye life became a lot more normal in terms of how the rest of the world lived. Except this ‘normal living’ wasn’t being done in my own country. We moved to New Zealand too soon for me to view this as my life, as well as travelling too much for me to consider myself a normal child. We would travel halfway across the world to visit relatives instead of driving down the street or over to the next town. Then to move to ‘MY COUNTRY’ (whatever that meant) at the age of 13 was at the time an extremely exciting idea. All the travel and moving I had done up until then had been an adventure. However, unbeknown to me, this move was going to be excruciatingly painful. Why should living in YOUR country be so painful? I was a Kiwi by birth. I spoke English. I looked like a New Zealander. This was a time when I learned that I am who I am because of the people I hang out with, not where I was born. I could have been a Korean who grew up in New Zealand. That wouldn’t make me a Korean if I hung out with New Zealander’s. I was stepping into now that I am on the other side, what I can only call a tunnel. The kind of tunnel where you can’t see anything. This tunnel was pitch black. I didn’t know where I was heading. And whenever I tried to make progress, I would be back where I was originally. On top of that I was a teenager trying to figure out where I fitted into the world. I didn’t fit into this Kiwi world physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally or socially. Socially and mentally were my two key problem areas. Because to add another shadow to my already pitch black tunnel, I was dealing with the long term effects of a head injury. So with all of this in mind, I ask myself why I don’t consider myself an adult until I am married? I guess I still have the little girl inside of me that I am hanging onto. The little girl that had a sweet pain free childhood until she moved to New Zealand. I want that childhood back. I don’t want to consider myself an adult until I am married because my parent’s marriage was so good. I don’t want to be in the middle somewhere because I associate this middle period with sadness. Sadness associated with being rejected as a struggling teenager who didn’t know where she was really from. In my mind my siblings have passed from the childhood to the adult phase very well, solely because they are married. Have they not overcome any childhood traumas because they are married? How can you give of yourself when you yourself are not right? In my mind’s eye, you can’t. But this is not true. They still have issues. Their issues might not be the same as mine, but they are still there. So I ask myself, are my issues irresolvable? Or am I making them a bigger deal than what they really are? I believe that they are a bit of both. Neither of them had a head injury to cope with. I also believe that I dwell on my issues too often. This gives the devil opportunity to attack me more frequently. Living in China has brought me out of my dark tunnel. My life is now more of an open lane through the countryside. I have light; I can see what is going on around me. I am also more at peace with who I am. I can smell the roses! I don’t know where the road is going but it is a much happier road. Sometimes this road leads through a small wood, but I KNOW that there will very shortly be an opening. I like these small woods because not only do they give me a feeling of security, but they force me to trust in God more. So, with what God has done in my life, I can consider myself an adult. And not just an adult, but an accomplished one. Yes, my thoughts are still weird, but I am where God wants me to be. My life is not on hold, I am living it. I am walking down the country lane that God wants me to walk down. Maybe that dark tunnel for those many years was just an overgrown part of the woods. These woods seemed so dark because I wasn’t mature in my walk with God.
August 30, 2008 | Filed Under
Blog,
Introduction |
7 Comments
Loading ...