| You Are Sunrise |
 You enjoy living a slow, fulfilling life. You enjoy living every moment, no matter how ordinary. You are a person of reflection and meditation. You start and end every day by looking inward. Caring and giving, you enjoy making people happy. You're often cooking for friends or buying them gifts. All in all, you know how to love life for what it is - not for how it should be. |
“You enjoy living a slow, fulfilling life. You enjoy living every moment, no matter how ordinary. You are a person of reflection and meditation. You start and end every day by looking inward.” Hmm – now this is very interesting. It kind of fits in with something I was thinking about earlier tonight.
Mel and I were on our way back from dinner tonight. After leaving Melinda’s we took a trolleybus to the city center and had dinner at one of our favorite places – an “Irish” sports bar. Afterward we went shopping at the supermarket across the street. (I know it sounds like we go shopping all the time – actually, we do – not because we want to, but because when you must carry everything you buy in your hands, not in your car, you tend to buy less but buy more often. Just a fact of life.) We then took a taxi home.
Sometimes, usually at odd moments like while riding on a trolleybus, trying to figure out what the Russian or Ukrainian language reklama (advertisement) plastered on the window actually says – or sometimes while we are flying down the street in a speeding taxi, dodging potholes and oncoming cars and buses, I have these feelings of total unreality (this must be the “no matter how ordinary” part). I ask myself – is this real - or am I just dreaming or imagining all of this? Is this really, truly, for absolute reals MY life, or is it some strange novel I’m currently reading while actually sitting in my quiet American livingroom? Am I having delusions of living another life? Did I have a past life, a life before Ukraine, a life of living in Alaska? Of having children? Of living in Colorado for 20 years of my marriage? Or is this life I live now the real one and that other life just a pleasant dream I had one night after a large (sleep enhancing) dinner?
Is it really possible for one person (actually a couple) to have two lives at one time? A life that revolves around America with family, friends, bills, church, news and so forth and so on? While at the same time having a life in a parallel universe where you understand only a small part of everything that is said, everything that is written, everything that you see, where you wonder why you do what you do everyday just to live life normally, and you wonder who is watching you now and why and what is the government up to that could drastically change your life in a matter of seconds?
Yes, as I was riding in the speeding taxi on the way home tonight (that’s the part where my life is “slow and fulfilling,” I’m sure), Mel sitting in front of me, his head bent over sideways because the car is so small and the roof so low, and his seat pushed back as far as it would go, which meant that one of my knees was firmly jammed against the window knob and in pain – I looked out the window into the dark of Kherson city streets at night and thought to myself – this is really interesting. Who would have thought, 20 years ago, that I would be living here, doing this?
Is this really my life? Is this really who I am? What happened to the me that wanted to live in the bush of Alaska forever and ever and commune with nature and the mosquitoes? I think that person is still inside of me – just a lot quieter now than she used to be because she’s basically very confused about what happened to “reality,” and what that actually even means. (side note: that person now communes with the spider that still lives in the balcony doorway instead. Ha!)
However, I do love my life. And I’m glad I’m here – most of the time. And I look forward to the next big adventure God has for me. I’m very glad there is eternity to look forward to, because there is still so much I want to do and see!
