What is a life in two worlds? When am I truly awake? When I’m “there,” my family is a picture tacked on the wall, taunting me with the hollow echo of memories. My younger self smiles at me as if to say it was all a dream, “there” is my reality.
When I’m “there,” my reality is music, teaching, hills, castles, coffee, darkness, light. When I’m “here,” my reality is living breathing family, friends, church, and flat hard ground. Mom’s hugs, Dad’s theological lectures, David’s radioactive hair, Erich’s sweet ride. When I’m “here,” the friends of “there” are relegated to dreams and shadowy Skype conversations.
When I’m “there,” I try to hold on to “here” because my roots are “here.” My sense of being, my identity was “here.” All that molded my life for 22 years was “here.”
But what of the fantastical journey of “there,” which seems so dream-like and distant now? Surely my identity has taken on a new flavor in a new place. Now the tables are reversed. Now I am “here,” but I cling to fading bits of “there.” As comforting as “here” is, my heart longs for the adventure, the unknown, the discovery of “there.”
But it won’t be long before “there” becomes “here.” I’m not sure how I feel about that.
Home is where the heart is; my heart is not in a place any more or it would be torn in two.
My home is in Christ. From the safety of His arms, I can move from “here” to exotic “there,” never feeling lost or losing my identity, my security, my home.
