Swazi was messy. Not a dropped carton of eggs on the tile kind of mess but a spilled 1 pound container of multicolored glitter in the living room while the fan was on high kind of mess. It’s overwhelming. It makes you face-palm, sigh loudly, curse at your life, maybe cry a little bit, then try to wrangle all the vacuums while you laugh about the fact that your living room looks like a disco ball.
Swazi was kind of like that. If we are being 100% honest here, I did a lot of crying, a lot of sighing loudly, a lot of life cursing. “What heck (replace heck with a stronger word) am I doing??” Was a common thought I had. I was thousands of miles from home. Uncomfortable. Overwhelmed. Heartbroken. Longing for familiarity when there is no possibility of it.
I was angry. Why would God call me to a place that would make me so messy inside? Why couldn’t God have just been like “It’s chill. Go to college. You don’t have to leave everything you’ve ever known.” I was a mess. I didn’t even know where to start to when it came to cleaning myself up, organizing my emotions and thoughts so I could actually live like a normal, emotionally stable human. I couldn’t find my vacuums.
Honestly, I still don’t know where my vacuums are. God and I are still trying to work through the mess of emotions that would resemble a tangled ball of yarn or a bowl of spaghetti if they were a tangible thing. What I have done is learned to find joy in the utter mess that my life and me are right now. I found joy in the little moments, like waking up ?at 6:00 am to make over 100 pancakes in an African kitchen or dancing to Mumford and Sons as loud as the little speaker could play. I’ve learned to stop and soak in the times when I do feel at peace despite all the crazy. Another thing I have learned (and probably still am) is that there is a big difference between joy and happiness. I always heard people talk about how you have to choose joy but I never really got it, joy is something you just simply feel… Right? Well in Swazi I started to realize that despite struggle and despite the hurt and despite the discontent there are still crazy cool moments that can be joyful but only if you let them. So while my life and me big mess but I guess for now, I’ll just try to find the joy and laugh at my disco ball living room.
