Life is Weird

I really think a long time about titles for blog posts - even if they're only a few words. This one's been rolling around in my head awhile with the accompanying words bumping in my brain like a pinball machine.

Life is weird.

Looking at the snow-capped Cascade Mountains feeling really small first awakened me to the notion. I never in a million years dreamed my Woodruff, SC, self would be living among such huge mountains where skis are accompanied by sunscreen. I grew up in a town that now has a population of about 4000 and I'm firmly planted in a city, living in a high rise apartment tower among a population of 600,000+. Weird.

While we rode along the Sea to Sky Highway between Vancouver and Whistler, I thought about the fact that mountain based winter sports have only been part of our reality for 3 years - an outgrowth of our move west. As it turns out, that's resulted in our children learning to ski at the #1 North American ski resort. We very intentionally live like tourists here - not wanting to miss an ounce of what this place has to offer. But I worry. I worry that we've set our children up for disappointment - knowing that they've cut their teeth at #1 of anything. What will they do/where will they go to top this? Their first concert experience happened here - in a luxury suite - Bon Jovi - for free. Weird. Beats my New Kids on the Block regular seats at Furman many moons ago by a mile (though I'd totally go see NKOTB again). We're spoiled - simply by virtue of place and the people who are in our lives.

Conversely, we've been grounded in ways I'd never have imagined either. Our kids' school boasts 40+ language groups and the cultures that go with them. Our children's world view is being shaped through relationships and they've learned how to communicate even when they don't share common language with a classmate. We've visited houses of worship from various backgrounds - places I'd only read about when I was their age because our little town didn't have a mosque or Hindu temple or Buddhist temple. Our family has had faith discussions far more intense than what I grew up with - because friends here believe all different sorts of things and we've experienced 'church' in new ways. This year, we've personally encountered refugees from Syria - raising money to help them buy transit passes and picture dictionaries as they've left everything they know to try and rebuild a life in a foreign land. We sleep with our windows open and hear how mental illness ravages some of our neighbors who spend their nights wandering streets with grocery carts talking (sometimes yelling) at people only they can hear/see. At times, I suffer from sensory overload - I'm humbled, grateful, amazed and slightly awestruck by our current reality.

All to say, I wonder (sometimes worry) about how we'll plug into wherever our next home might be. Will we be the 'weird ones' with all these graphic stories of intense human interactions? Will we be disappointed if we live in a flat landscape without water? Will our children have trouble fitting in if everyone looks like them and speaks their language? What will adjustment look like? How will we manage it? It's all just weird. But I read my new most favorite wall plaque when we were in Whistler lately and I'm claiming it - you'll one day see it hanging on my wall (once I get it painted). And now, now I'm OK with being the 'weird one', the misfit, the round peg in the square hole and I hope we run into those who see things differently wherever we go. For I've learned that what's most important is to be open - open to new places, new people, new experiences. God knows our family didn't get here because we stuck to a pre-determined path. It's in riding the waves that come our way that we sometimes are carried to where we most need to be. And so our family rides on - open to where the waves next take us and to the people we'll find there.