I have been working my way through two weeks of night shifts. Normally, in my life on the other side of the globe, I would have run from these shifts screaming but here I find them to be a major relief from the pressures that I find here during the day. Currently, there is a word document on my computer which is growing into quite a thorough work on the emotions one experiences going through culture shock along with all the other baggage that life likes to give you. Maybe one day it will be cleared for universal reading but at this point I think I will keep a lid on it. You know, maybe just see how the story works itself out. The writting is helping though. So many days here I feel like a bull in a china shop without even intending too. I say or do something that taken into a different cultural context does not translate well and my best intentions end up falling flat on their face. At this point I end up having melt down in one way or another.
It’s been 5 months now. Five long, intense, really fun yet frustrating months. If you asked me to actually verbalize what I have learned at this point I really could not tell you but I am beginning to feel the changes. The beauty of leaving everything you have known and opening yourself up to new worlds is that you begin to learn just how small the blinders you were wearing were. It broadens your perspective on everything inculding scripture. In fact you find that you cannot exist through this without your God and His word. That alone is worth the journey and the experience.
Night shifts lift from me the pressure to conform to the expectations of other cultures and their perceptions and to return to being myself and caring for my patients as I see fit. It removes many of the daily clashes that I have with people and gives my defenses a break. Being one of very few Americans in my little world I am forced to be constantly on my toes when I talk to people and also in how I talk to them and what I say (Christine is getting a filter…who would have thought.). Day in and day out I am struggling and learning to a point where I feel I am about to explode. Then, in the stillness of the night I find rest and peace.
So, here I sit and sort out emotions, struggles, decisions, frustrations, and goals. As the hours slip by under the dim lights of the midnight shifts, babies all sunggled in their blankets, tummys full, and snug as little bugs I find a reset happens. I find that my emotions stop flailing and I come to my center again. Tomorrow or the next day a new wave will probably stike that leave me feeling as though all of these words were for nothing but each moment has it’s value. The upheavals teach more than the still waters. This I know all too well.
All these lessons are for the best. As I settle in I find myself learning that all will be well. I find that I am not flailing the way I was before. Certainly the ground beneath my feet has been rocked but even that is settling. Day in and day out I find that life is pleasant more than it is not.
Indeed, it is worth being here. Even in the moments when I think I am about to loose my mind.
Unconventional Womanhood 