Twelve years ago, I stood in the Astrodome for the first time and began a long weekend of attempting to care.
I wrote and published my first article after that weekend. I’m a little embarrassed by the words I wrote then, but I still remember what I felt when I typed those words. I remember how it felt to walk in, adrenalin pumping, ready and eager to help, so desperate to do something and so sure I could.
I learned a few things that weekend, but I learned a lot more in the years after.
I don’t know where I’m from.
It’s a Third Culture Kid thing. When someone asks you “where you’re from?” your brain doesn’t know how to compute, how to answer that question.
My friends tease me – I change my answer based on moods. Am I English? American? Texan? Who do I cheer for at the Olympics? I’m the classic turn coat. And it’s a real thing. The conflict inside. The not knowing where you’re from.
But today, it is clear to me by the tears I can’t stop crying that at least a large chunk of who I am is from Houston.
Sometimes, when I can’t pray, I write. It’s a step that sometimes helps me find the thing that is stuck in my heart, the thorn that is keeping me from Him. Sometimes it’s sin, sometimes it’s just confusion, sometimes it’s pain.
What I know today is that there is this restlessness inside my soul, that is shifting around more and more each day, making me too uncomfortable to ignore for much longer. Sometimes it feels like an ache, sometimes like rage, mostly like desperation.
I laid in bed last night and tried to open my heart to Him. I tried to tell Him what I was feeling and articulate what I was longing for or aching for but there was just this sadness. A weariness. So I closed my eyes and went to sleep banking on new mercies.
And here they are to meet me. Not in the way I would prefer, which is waking up feeling good and clear and excited about the week ahead.
I am writing my Thesis. Right now. Well. Not this second, but I was a few seconds ago, and I will be again in a few more seconds. But I’m taking this moment, to use words to help me remember to breathe and rest and not waste these last few days before I’ll hit send and wrap up my stint as a Masters student.