Juxtaposition

I uncrossed my legs and got up off the couch.  I set my half-full tea cup down on the kitchen counter and went into the bathroom to take out my contacts.  Upon finishing, I walked into my bedroom.  Without turning on the light in the bedroom, I walked over and I felt around on the top of nightstand for my glasses.  I then remembered they were exactly where I had taken them off this morning.  They were on the kitchen table.  Before leaving, I bend over and grabbed my laptop from its storage place.  Reaching the kitchen, I placed the laptop on the table and placed my glasses on.  I turned on the stove to heat water for my, now, lukewarm beverage. After re-filling my tea cup, I powered up my laptop and pulled up my blog.  I opened a new document and began to type.  That is what you are reading now.

So, here I am.  My last post on this blog was after re-entry into the U.S. from Israel. The experience of re-entry has been one like getting your first tire blow-out on the freeway at 60 mph.  No one expects or plans a tire-blow out.  No one wants one (at least no one that I know of).  It is a surprising and shocking experience and your brain and reflexes have to remember what to do.  Brake or not, use the gas or not?  What am I supposed to do?  Who do you call for help?  Do you replace the tire like normal?  

I don't claim to be some poet who lived in the mountains for the past 16 years.  I didn't sell all that I own to move to a country that most people have never heard of to help with a grossly, inadequately-staffed orphanage.  I am not a highly trained, undercover, special-operations military person who has been on 19 life-saving missions.  I just decided to write a blog about my experiences and I like to call those experiences "my life".  I cannot compare "my life" to the poet in the mountains or the brave person who helps with that orphanage.  I can only compare it to my own life and all the moments as I live them.  All those moments have shaped me as a person.  Some I will not and cannot share, some I proudly and openly share, and some moments were surprising, unexpected and they entered my life in a way that only surprising and unexpected moments can.

It was just as foreign to move to Israel as it was to move back to the U.S.  I cannot say that the experience would be like that for everyone, but it was for me.  Living in Israel was a whole person involvement: emotionally, spiritually, physically and mentally.  Preparing for, moving to, and living there is an entire moment of reality in my life.  But in it, is little and miniscule moments that make up that whole. When I packed up to come back to the states, including my whole emotional, spiritual, physical and mental moments of reality I had just been apart of, I got on the plane to fly back to the only home I had ever know, the U.S.  As I stated in the allegory above, re-entry was like getting a tire blow-out on the freeway at 60 mph.  It wasn't smooth, comfortable, or nor did I like it.

You see, I didn't realize that my life and what I saw and experienced would change my perspectives on so many things.  How can a civilian, who lives in a warzone (for however long or short it is), not be a changed person?  I'm not trying to be poetic.  Definitely not.  It's just the truth.  There were many other life-changing events that happened while I lived in Israel, but none changed me as much as living in that warzone.  I learned as it was all unfolding before me; what a siren sounds like, what the faces look like while sitting in a bomb shelter, what the adrenaline feels like as rockets were intercepted overhead or when they hit the ground a mile from that bomb shelter.  I cannot describe all that went on in that learning. I don't know what exactly changed me, I just know "it" did.  So, with that comes the juxtaposition.

In great moments of reality that shift our perspective, we have (are compelled, forced) to compare our past and our present.  We are compelled to compare what we used to know and what we now know (or usually what we THINK we know.  I'm mostly referring to myself, here).  You may be wondering why I didn't include the future.  Well, we don't get to compare our future perspective.  We can plan for tomorrow and all of the tomorrows after that, but we really don't  know beyond each breath.  So, back to the past and present....I stepped off the plane in the U.S. and began to realize HOW my perspective had changed.  I didn't see or view all aspects of life the way I had before.  And that was just plain hard.  I could try all day long to try to describe to any person what my experience was like living in the Middle East, but even with the best explanation, it's not the same as living it.

I say all this because coming back home to the U.S. has felt like coming to a crossroad.  That crossroad mostly involves my personal perspectives and views; how drastically different the countries and cultures are from the U.S. and the Middle East, what it's like to stare the possibility of death in the face and how that forever changes the perspective on what really matters in life.  It has taken time to re-adjust and filter all the past and present moments of reality in (my) life. 

When we meet a crossroad in life, we all have a choice.  We can keep doing what we've always done or thought or we can take that challenge of the crossroad, the juxtaposition, and see where it takes us.  Even if we don't get a choice about taking the crossroad (i.e. something out of our control or an unexpected change) we still get a choice about our attitude as we meet that crossroad.  As we transition at the juxtaposition, crossroad, it's often not easy.  It's often not easy because we don't really know what is coming next.  We only have our past and present perspectives to take with us at that crossroad. 

As I began to travel down the "crossroad", it has been a time of discovery for me.  Most of this discovery has been strange, and I'd like to admit honestly, I have not been "enjoying this moment, for this moment is my life".....but as the horizon becomes more clear, my attitude has been shifting.  As that shift has been happening, I've had to throw out some of my old perspectives.

Through this juxtaposition, crossroad, and time of discovery, I've done a lot of thinking, praying, walking, pondering, and analyzing.  For there to be a lasting perspective change, I have to change.  The first place to start (and always focus on) is yielding to the change in me.  'Cause if I don't, there won't be no change!  Now, with this, I unfortunately can't see what will happen tomorrow.  Change takes time and only later will I be able to look back and see that change.  Until then, everyday that I've been gifted is filled with little crossroads, some easy and some hard. 

So while re-entry hasn't been a smooth ride, I am trying to embrace the transition from one perspective to the next.  HOW my perspective has changed has presented me with new outlooks and viewpoints that definitely aren't very "popular".  But change isn't always very popular, is it?