5 Weeks

In 5 weeks, I will be in back in the US.  Back in Charlottesville.  Back "home"

I have mixed feelings about this.  Previously, thinking about going back has carried a lot of anxiety with it.  I've had to worry about if I would be accepted at a seminary, write all of the applications, prepare for interviews, ask people for references, apply for scholarships and financial aid.  Thinking about going back meant diving into whatever task was at hand.  Then, the applications were finished.  I started hearing back, I was accepted to three of the four seminaries to which I applied.  I realized that only two of them felt right (strangely, neither was my initial first choice).  I had to struggle to decide which of the two I wanted to attend.  Columbia in Decatur, Georgia.  An exciting place just outside Atlanta, a fantastic reputation for mission and missiology, the possibility of spending a year working in Africa.  Or Union, in Richmond, Virginia.  About an hour from Charlottesville, down the street from one of my best friends.  Close to my parents, sisters, nephews, friends, and my God-daughter.  A slightly stronger reputation than Columbia overall, but without the same focus on mission, no existing contacts with Africa, but willing to work with me to create something.

Than, with a decision mostly made, more paperwork, applying for financial aid.  If I didn't get it there, I couldn't go.  So always there was some uncertainty.  Sure, I'd be in Charlottesville for most of a month, but then what?

Then last week I heard back, Union is giving me the aid I need.  So I'm going there.  There is relief, I'm happy with the decision, but now it's real.  Sure, I still have to figure out housing, but that's not nearly as much of a distraction as wondering what city I'd be in.

I can't hide anymore.  I only have 5 weeks left.

5 weeks until I go home, but it feels like I'm leaving home too.

When did I start thinking that way?  How long does it take for a place to become part of you?

Clearly these 10 months have been enough, but when did it happen?

I don't think it had happened in January.  When I went back then, I still thought of people here as "them," the few Northern Irish idioms that had worked their way into my speech patterns were things to help keep me straight.  I used them so I could understand others talking to me.  Now they're part of how I think.  I don't want to lose some of these speech patterns.  I want 3:30 to remain "half-three;" "supposed to be" sounds so much more awkward and ungainly than "meant to be."  "Flip" is no longer the quaint way John avoids swearing, but has become a favorite of mine as well.  I'm proud of these.

But I wonder how long I can hold onto them.  Just a few days with my parents and "car park" reverted back to "parking lot" and I remembered that no matter how long I'm here, no matter how much I might think of the Northern Irish as "us," that will always be presumption and pretension.  I'll always be the American in the group.  Maybe I'll be the pet-American, adopted for a while, but no matter my sense of solidarity, I'm not really a local, and on some level my adoption of local habits remains affectation.

I'm still going to hold onto them though, affectation or not, it's still part of my story.