Foreigner

I am an American, from Chardeau*, and nearly 100% Irish.  I am a writer, a reader, crotcheter, and a girl (not to mention a laugher, a bad singer, and a pianist).  I am a Christian, a sister, a daughter, and a friend.  All these things are what I know--what I am. 

Most of the time, these things are what "define" me.  These are the words people use when someone asks "Who is Kelsey?".  And yet, while these things often are used to describe what and who I am, I often find it is the things that I am not that truly let a person know more about me.

Because in so many ways, I am a foreigner.

Last night I was watching Eat, Pray, Love, with Julia Roberts.  I have yet to read the book, as I tend to prefer fiction, but it was in watching that movie that I realized something.

I am a foreigner.

I've grown up in Church, with knowledge and relationship about God and all he has done.  Truly I tell you, I haven't a clue what it feels like to not know God.  I don't know what it feels like to be lost, to hunger for something and not understand what it is--to have a whole inside you that you try to fill with anything and everything, but never can succeed.

I really have no idea.  I watched as Julia Roberts' character had her first conversation with God; she cried, saying she hoped he knew how thankful she was for all he'd given her--even though they'd never spoken.

I've never felt that desperation.  I've never felt that sense of need.  Oh, I have needed God and I have felt desperation, but not to the extent of meeting him.  I've needed him and come to him crying for certain things in my life, but I knew he was there already...it was me coming to him as I come to one of my parents when I need help--my parents whom I've always known would be there.

In that moment, when I realized that this was something as foreign as the French language to me, I wondered what else I was foreign to.  What else in my life would cause me to cock my head to one side, much as my dog Gibbs does when I make funny noises at him.  I no longer even saw the TV as I sat there, my mind racing, perplexed.

I am a foreigner.

I don't know what it feels like to wake up in a city other than the one I've been born in and go to work.  I've only ever been on vacation--I've never lived anywhere but Chardeau.  I don't know what it feels like to receive a paycheck after a forty hour work week (I've worked 4-10s as an intern, but never been paid).  I've never been able to be a foreigner in Europe (where everything would be foreign to me).  I've never been published, good and kissed, slapped, drunk, or male.  I have no need to be slapped, drunk, or male, but they are things I've never been.

More than anything, this blog is a funny little train of thought that traveled through my head while being entertained by a form of media--but does it make you question what you are a foreigner to?

What do you take for granted that you've never experienced, whether good or bad?  What is foreign to you?

Do you need to change it?

A few of the things I'm foreign to I plan to change.  I intend to be published; I intend to have a full time job now that I've graduated; I expect to be married one day; I will someday go to Europe, and Ireland, and New York for that matter--I may even be there working if I can get published.

There are always choices in life, and there will always be things I am a foreigner to, but if I can change them (and want to) then I will.

Will you?

*It's not Narnia, but close.