These pictures were from a Christmas SIX YEARS AGO! Time truly is a mysterious, wide thing. I cannot believe time has a grip on every human being with the same literal logistics, but is experienced so personally and distinct. Time may be what one wants more of, time may seem like a curse, time might be filled with distractions, or with eternally significant events. Anyway, on Fridays I don't have class and I'm already going to NYC on Sunday, and I don't have much homework. So I decided to come to the library and see what rabbit hole the computer brought me in. Today is my mom's blog. I've been down memory lane with the blog a few times already since I've been here. It is sometimes overwhelming and I usually shed a tear or two. It makes me really, really, really grateful. I look up words my mom used that I didn't know, realize how happenings years apart can actually relate, am reminded how things always work out. I am a student of time.
I am so grateful I'll be home for all this Christmas magic this year. To be completely frank, I think this homecoming might be better than my mission homecoming last year. Eleven months ago I got on a plane and realized that my mission was over and that all the drudgery, heartbreak, guilt, struggles, and disappointments I experienced in Hong Kong were supposed to vanish in the redemptive perfection of being finished and being home. There were some pretty high expectations and unrealistic hopes for catharsis. On the plane, I felt as if I was just barely in Utah, that I hadn't been gone that long. I was not ready to return to the life I had before. But I was absolutely exhausted and ready to give up a position of full-time service, even though I loved the service with all my heart and would miss it. I was leaving all the things that had kept me alive and okay for 18 months. I knew I wasn't leaving the most important people or lessons; Christ and Heavenly Father now had permanent places in my soul. But I still felt a little empty, even abandoned, now that I had to leave my HK friends, other missionaries, my MTC group, the Cantonese language, the hustle and bustle of Kwai Fong and Kennedy Town, the beautiful harbor of Pok Fu Lam, and the global blessings on behalf of missionaries from millions of good people. How could something new fill that sudden void, when I knew the two were so entirely different?
Well, at first, it didn't.
I was of course exceptionally happy and relieved and overjoyed to see my family. Though I was so nervous before. We got off the plane and immediately went to the bathroom to put on makeup and try to look presentable after a year and a half of sweating, refusing vanity, and never having enough time. I was shaking.
We finally took enough steps to get us to the exit of the airport, where we got on the escalator and prepared for....everything.
I looked forward to that very iconic moment so many times. And now it was here. And did I do enough? Did I deserve it all? Would they feel I was anticlimactic? Was it anticlimactic? Now what would I do with my life?
My uncle Josh started up a chanting of my name-GOLDA-which my family followed the whole time I descended those moving stairs. The symbolism of the escalator is one I can't explain and that probably seems stupid. Anyway, they were saying GOLDA, my very own name, and all the identity that went along with it. Not Douh Ji Muih, or Sister Dopp, or Seester Dope, or trainer.
In that moment, I realized how important this was, how hard I worked for it, and that it really was the conclusion to my mission. But it was not the climax. I did not go on a mission to come home. My mission was in service and sacrifice to the people of Hong Kong and to God and to my self, especially my future self. But that's hard to grasp when you have about a hundred emotions to sift through in front of your extended family, jet-lagged, and in a sea of other white people. There's a Chinese idiom meaning hundred feelings bound in one.
Anyway, the hugs and smiles and laughing and crying and picture-taking was everything I wanted and so much more. The "so much more" was a new emotion I had never felt before, but I was still so elated to be home and so grateful for my supportive, beautiful family.
Okay so that was way longer of a description than I meant to give. I guess I'm in writing mode from reading so many entries and having alone time.
After December 1, 2017, I continued to dissect and be tortured as well as joyously elevated by those hundred emotions. I was sad when I should not have been sad and I felt worthless when I should have been aware of my value. Christmas was amazing, but I knew I needed a lot of healing and closure before it was "like before." Nothing can be "like before" though, so I put my little ounces of faith I had left into the EVENTUALLY tab, hoping it would turn into hope.
Eventually does come. Thank goodness. Time helped out a lot. Father Time, which is really Heavenly Father, taught me a lot and gave me everything I needed to understand. Time is His gift, and it only works with patience.
So long story short, I am so excited for this Christmas. Now all the millions of Goldas are bound in one and I'm really happy. The holidays will be "kind of like before" and that's just how I want it.
Dieter F. Uchtdorf said, "Let us not walk the path of discipleship with our eyes on the ground, thinking only of the tasks and obligations before us. Let us not walk unaware of the beauty of the glorious earthly and spiritual landscapes that surround us."
I am so grateful I'll be home for all this Christmas magic this year. To be completely frank, I think this homecoming might be better than my mission homecoming last year. Eleven months ago I got on a plane and realized that my mission was over and that all the drudgery, heartbreak, guilt, struggles, and disappointments I experienced in Hong Kong were supposed to vanish in the redemptive perfection of being finished and being home. There were some pretty high expectations and unrealistic hopes for catharsis. On the plane, I felt as if I was just barely in Utah, that I hadn't been gone that long. I was not ready to return to the life I had before. But I was absolutely exhausted and ready to give up a position of full-time service, even though I loved the service with all my heart and would miss it. I was leaving all the things that had kept me alive and okay for 18 months. I knew I wasn't leaving the most important people or lessons; Christ and Heavenly Father now had permanent places in my soul. But I still felt a little empty, even abandoned, now that I had to leave my HK friends, other missionaries, my MTC group, the Cantonese language, the hustle and bustle of Kwai Fong and Kennedy Town, the beautiful harbor of Pok Fu Lam, and the global blessings on behalf of missionaries from millions of good people. How could something new fill that sudden void, when I knew the two were so entirely different?
Well, at first, it didn't.
I was of course exceptionally happy and relieved and overjoyed to see my family. Though I was so nervous before. We got off the plane and immediately went to the bathroom to put on makeup and try to look presentable after a year and a half of sweating, refusing vanity, and never having enough time. I was shaking.
We finally took enough steps to get us to the exit of the airport, where we got on the escalator and prepared for....everything.
I looked forward to that very iconic moment so many times. And now it was here. And did I do enough? Did I deserve it all? Would they feel I was anticlimactic? Was it anticlimactic? Now what would I do with my life?
My uncle Josh started up a chanting of my name-GOLDA-which my family followed the whole time I descended those moving stairs. The symbolism of the escalator is one I can't explain and that probably seems stupid. Anyway, they were saying GOLDA, my very own name, and all the identity that went along with it. Not Douh Ji Muih, or Sister Dopp, or Seester Dope, or trainer.
In that moment, I realized how important this was, how hard I worked for it, and that it really was the conclusion to my mission. But it was not the climax. I did not go on a mission to come home. My mission was in service and sacrifice to the people of Hong Kong and to God and to my self, especially my future self. But that's hard to grasp when you have about a hundred emotions to sift through in front of your extended family, jet-lagged, and in a sea of other white people. There's a Chinese idiom meaning hundred feelings bound in one.
Anyway, the hugs and smiles and laughing and crying and picture-taking was everything I wanted and so much more. The "so much more" was a new emotion I had never felt before, but I was still so elated to be home and so grateful for my supportive, beautiful family.
Okay so that was way longer of a description than I meant to give. I guess I'm in writing mode from reading so many entries and having alone time.
After December 1, 2017, I continued to dissect and be tortured as well as joyously elevated by those hundred emotions. I was sad when I should not have been sad and I felt worthless when I should have been aware of my value. Christmas was amazing, but I knew I needed a lot of healing and closure before it was "like before." Nothing can be "like before" though, so I put my little ounces of faith I had left into the EVENTUALLY tab, hoping it would turn into hope.
Eventually does come. Thank goodness. Time helped out a lot. Father Time, which is really Heavenly Father, taught me a lot and gave me everything I needed to understand. Time is His gift, and it only works with patience.
So long story short, I am so excited for this Christmas. Now all the millions of Goldas are bound in one and I'm really happy. The holidays will be "kind of like before" and that's just how I want it.
Dieter F. Uchtdorf said, "Let us not walk the path of discipleship with our eyes on the ground, thinking only of the tasks and obligations before us. Let us not walk unaware of the beauty of the glorious earthly and spiritual landscapes that surround us."
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