If I am being completely honest with myself, I think I’m very dissimilar - more
than I would like - to the people around me. As I’ve said in previous journals (so I
apologize for how repetitive they’ve become), I’ve lost a little of my identity here/can’t
find it again. I am unable to be the smartest or funniest person in the room and so I find
myself comparing how different I am to other people and the imperfections that used to
not bother me consume me. Culture doesn’t quite help because I’m learning more and
more about the lack of education I’ve had, how individualistic my American identity is,
and more. I believe that God allows us to experience discomfort for a reason. Part of what
I’ve discovered since being out here is how often I’ve experienced this, especially with
church. I’ve been crying at almost every service and venting to those in the Young Adult
church group so much that I feel like it’s become my personality. I’m trying to prevent
this from happening but it’s becoming more and more difficult. Thankfully, the people
that are at this church claim to always be there and be willing to pray and hear the
struggles I am going through, but my past is and always has made it difficult for me to
believe that people truly care. I’d say I’ve grown to become very flexible in cross-cultural
interactions and life. I may have a difficult time looking at others from their perspectives
from a collectivist perspective, but I have adapted to being more aware of how others
interact with each other, and basing my next moves off of them. Imperfection definitely
has bothered me more since I’ve studied abroad. I want to be included and I want people
to reach out to me to hangout, so when they don’t or they do something that I wasn’t
invited to, it makes me wonder why. What imperfection of mine is preventing you from
reaching out to me? This I need to work on.