life in limbo—

When I stepped off the plane from Scotland at the end of July, I thought I was only coming home for three weeks. Here I am, three months later, still in Kansas. 

This visa waiting game has been mentally exhausting, and in some ways, I've felt stuck the way I did in early quarantine. (Thank god there is at least some freedom to move about safely.) I’m trying hard not to beat myself up for an error in extending my original visa, but it's hard not to. The process of resolving that error has moved slower than we thought it would. Not having a clear idea of where I’ll be any given week has been tough because, at the end of the day, I miss my work and my people in Dundee. 

As the days get darker and the seasonal depression tries to take hold, it has proved difficult to hold onto the glimmers of goodness that extra time at home has brought. The Thanksgiving season makes leaning into gratitude in search of hope a little easier, though. 

A few things I've been grateful for lately: 

— Thursday morning coffee with the youth group at FPC Salina. Never before my time in Dundee with Connect Youth would I have gone out of my way to do this because high school kids scared me (😅). It's one of my favorite 'constants' during the week now.

— Coronado Heights sunsets. I’ve seen a lot of pretty sunsets in other places but these always feel different. 

— I actually had time to go to Colorado to visit my pals who moved there while I was gone last year. I didn't have time for that trip during the weeks in August when I thought I wasn’t going to be home for very long, so this trip was a welcomed surprise. 

— Mom + I, along with a few others from our church, are starting to prep and serve meals at a local resource agency and on what day? Wednesday -- the same as my beloved Connect Cafe in Dundee. 

— Swedish dancer practices with mom. I loved dancers in high school, and I still love it now ~just Lindsborg things~

— Making new friends in a town that I’ve known forever. When 99% of your friend group moves out of your hometown too, being home for a long period of time can get boring quickly, but Teressa put her socialite pants on and met some new people. That has helped so much. 

— Coffee and chats with Frau Dorsch, my angel of a high school german teacher who feels like a great grandma to me. I love her spirit and the stories she shares, so getting to spend extra time with her has been so special.

—Virtual tasks that’s allowed me to remain partly connected to my placement in Scotland. There’s a bit more purpose to my day because of it. I would love to be working while I’m home but my departure has been too up in the air to make that a viable option.

Based on that list, yes, it hasn’t been all bad, but do I wish I was back in Dundee preparing for our Christmas event next week? Yes. Am I sad that the little bit of Scottish that started sneaking into my speaking pattern is going away? Oddly, yes. Do I feel terrible that my sweet roommate, Emma, is on her own in our big flat? YES. Am I grieving the lack of my in-person presence in the connections I had built at work last year? Also yes. Clearly, the FOMO is real.

So while all of those gratitudes I listed above (plus many others that went unnamed) are great, the waiting & uncertainty still sucks and it's painful. The thing about gratitude, though, is it doesn't erase the disappointment. In her book, Grateful: The Transformative Power of Giving Thanks, Diana Butler Bass describes it like this: 

“Gratitude is not a psychological or political panacea, like a secular prosperity gospel, one that denies pain or overlooks injustice, because being grateful does not “fix” anything. Pain, suffering, and injustice—these things are all real. They do not go away. Gratitude, however, invalidates the false narrative that these things are the sum total of human existence, that despair is the last word. Gratitude gives us a new story."

The coexistence of moments of gratitude & grief gives us more opportunities to practice being flexible in our expectations. When I taught pre-K in Seattle, we talked a lot about practicing being flexible. When things don't go according to our plan or our expectations aren't met, how do we cope? Those are skills I'm still working on at twenty-four. It's in those moments of flexibility, though, where I do the most growing.

So while I'm in this limbo, I'll do my best to remain hopeful; hopeful that a decision on my visa will come through soon or that there'd be some clarity in whatever is next.