My break from the Ordinary

Bookshelves with memories of a daughter that I never met disappeared from my peripherals when I lay down. The bed feels like a plank, and I wonder if there is any cushion there at all.  White walls, white ceiling - thoroughly blank, the ceiling fan being the only difference in the emptiness. White lights that brighten with a white hugh to the already white room; these cause a glare on the steady beat of the fan blades whirring. Fan blades whirring are my source of cool air, my source of common sound in the quite, and my source of thoughts stemming out from the emptiness of the white room. I think about the quote from Monet, about painting the air, and realize ... I realize that I want to paint the feelings of that air.  The whiteness is more than the light, more than the walls, it is a feeling that branches out; branches past the room into my very mind of my feelings about being there.  


Flash back.


"Take this personality test," my friend tells me, "it is a little ridiculous how accurate it is!"  And so I listen, if for no other reason than I want to understand who I am; understand when I so often don't. It tells me four letters, that stand for different personalities, but I remember only one.  I is for introverted.  Introverted, me? I couldn't conceive it, but upon pondering, I realized its truth.  This personality test telling me something I didn't know about myself, something that becomes vitally important in my reactions - into the perception of that white room.


Flash forward


I meet Koon Add.  A friend of a friend of my dad, is how I describe her before, and then upon meeting her, a wonderfully kind Buddhist woman.  She enjoys spending time with me and says I'm like her daughter - for me she evokes a feeling of my inadequacy to talk about my Savior in regular talk, an inadequacy to share the gospel with someone who doesn't know it.  She invites me to spend a night at her house.  Every fragment of my screams no, for what reason I cannot know at the time.  Her persistence is outstanding and I fall into a pattern of yes and alright each time we talk.  Thus, time passes and I find myself at her house, in her daughter's bedroom, staring at the ceiling fan.


My introverted self considered, at seemingly every point of my visit, just how little I wanted to be there.    In fact, my mind brought me to a point where I was incredibly homesick for America, all because of one small visit overnight.  Thoughts of "what am I doing" where hard to repress, and suddenly, living all the rest of my years in suburban America seemed like the best plan as the blades of that fan whirred on.  The whiteness pressed in, and I felt alone. There was no one to talk about the topic that brings me the most joy, except for in a way that I had no idea how to breach.  And thus my inadequacies of sharing the gospel rose exceptionally.


I learned.  That is what staying at Koon Add's accomplished, me learning more about my deficiencies and how I need to rely on Him, not just for sharing the gospel, but also for feeling joyful in situations that otherwise would make me want to bang my head against the solid bed to the beat of the fan.  I learned how real my introverted self is, and how I realize that I depend way to much on "needing" other people with my same belief system around me at all times. I learned that I cling too tightly to my material comforts. I learned.

I am so happy that this is done.

But I am also happy for what I needed to see from it.