the simple things

It's the little things that make us happy,

It's the little things that bring us profound joy.

And yet we strive to achieve the big things, like how we see others do.

But our favourite memories are the ones that pass us by,

too quickly to know, 

it was a moment that would last in our hearts.

The kind we should savour. 

Not wish away, by always looking beyond. 

We try and capture some moments, the ones we think are the ones we'll want to reflect back on.

But the true memories, the ones we carry, the ones that ground us, the ones we miss, are often the ones we forgot to encapsulate on camera. 

Simple things, like waking up on the first day of summer holidays and going downstairs to watch cartoons, knowing that we have weeks of no school. 

Little things, like laughing with friends till it hurts and you cant breathe.

Ordinary things, like having dinner with siblings and talking for hours about "remember when". 

Mundane things, like going to the playground with your children and actually engaging with them.

Normal things, like quietly reading a book next to your husband, while he reads his. 

I'm going to be leaving the 20's later this year, but I have not come to terms with this yet. It is only recently that I am seriously beginning to understand where life's importance truly must lie. Although at once, I am sincerely aware of the absence of these things in my everyday life. Or more so, the people that make life bigger. 

This happens to those of us who have lived in many different places, we have family and friends from all over the world. 

Hardly ever together in the same place. 

It's the people in our lives that are the big things, not the events. Weddings are a big event, but only because of the love between two people. Birthdays are big deals, but only because of the person we celebrate. 

That's what I love about Jesus, He invested time on earth having everyday conversations with people. Eating together, laughing together, telling stories, listening, learning and was never in a rush. 
He is our greatest example. 

I love eavesdropping on other people's uneventful chats. Because from a distance, when you can't hear what they're saying, I always imagine their conversation to be riveting and deep. But usually the conversations we overhear are just silly everyday talk. People just being people. 

Like the other day in the park, I passed two men walking and talking together and the only snippet I got from their accent filled dialogue was, "where do you buy your fish from, is it fresh fish?" 

A few months ago, on a train going from Koln to Utrecht I overheard two european girls chatting with the person they happened to sit across from. They were talking about an older man they had met on one of their travels who had only seen 3 movies in his lifetime and Titanic was one of them. Apparently this is what he said about Titanic "That can't be a realistic movie because I've seen Jack in another movie." 

I love that. 

I love that about cultures, like in many Asian countries. Yes that includes Pakistan. People always make time to just sit around, talking, eating and laughing together. 

That's the only way to share your life with others.

I don't know any statistics, but I'm pretty certain there are more lonely people in fast paced individualistic western societies than there are in countries where people are not as much in a hurry to go and do their own thing. There are frustrating aspects to both sides, but there are also great things to learn. 

Time can have two meanings. You either give it or you're running out of it. On either account, time can feel wasted depending on our understanding of task and people. I agree that there needs to be a balance, but I hope that for the most part, relationships weigh heavier on our radar than the things we need to get done or the places we need to go. 

I sense that, nowadays, we are always in a hurry to go somewhere else, do something else, be someone else. 

Everyone is in a rush. I don't know why. 

Am I missing something, or am I only just getting it? 

One thing I do know is that I don't want to live with a sense of "Sorry I can't stop right now" but rather, "Yes I have time, are you hungry?" 

I suppose this is an age old lesson, we've been hearing it forever.

Yet we always need to be reminded.

Don't we?

we are all wanderers

"The Family - that dear octopus from whose tentacles we never quite escape, nor, in our inmost hearts, ever quite wish to." Dodie Smith

Cultures are some of the greatest treasures in our world: food, clothing, monuments, traditions, history, humour, language and ways of thinking. 

Tis' truly fascinating and gives an enormous sense of belonging and patriotism.

Imagine living in a land of one sort of culture that doesn’t match the merger found in your own home, your school or your friends' homes. If culture plays a part in creating our identity, how frustrating it is to feel like you constantly don’t belong to any. When your home has two opposing cultures that don't blend quite tastefully, when you get driven in a car that passes streets of a culture you can’t fully relate to but still identify by and transport to a school of yet a completely foreign frame of mind to the country it sits in; your inner world can become quite restless and chaotic. All of these experiences become part of the process of forming your identity but may not noticeably hinder you as a young child when all your cares are about watching My Girl, playing dress up, collecting candy, climbing walls and digging in dirt. But when you grow older and enter into adulthood, you begin to formulate your ideas and ways of thinking.  You find yourself yet again trying to fit into a new culture; like those times you tried to fit into a new school or a new city. Suddenly you realise that the foundation you have been standing on is full of cracks. In fact, there is more space than ground.

Suddenly your understanding of “home” and the comfort you found within, is no longer. When your nationality is simply a legal form of identification but says nothing of who you really are and the country you used to call home requires you to have a visa, it affects you more than you’ll ever know. If your identity lies in your nationality, but you don’t feel at home in the place it represents, who are you?

If home is a state of mind rather than an actual physical place, then I have felt homeless for half of my life. Actually, I prefer to think of it as having lived like a gypsy. 

My sense of home was taken away in a whirlwind, without closure, all because of the consequences of my teenage drama. I may have been perceived as rebellious, but in all truthfulness I was just shy and insecure and for some reason I carried this tag of identity for much of my life. From a rushed decision we found ourselves eight hours away from home and then within weeks ended up in a completely different country. From then on, everything we had known that was consistent was gone. It all changed.
Looking back, it was the best thing that happened in a most unfortunate way. Whether it was meant to happen this way or God made it work out for me, I’ll never really know. But I am thankful to be alive, to have love and to have found home again even though there will always be a part of me that will always feel restless and out of place.

That sense of home, the kind we are lucky to have on earth, is now ever present in the man whose name I carry. Wherever he is, I call home. And of course, home is always found amongst family.  
But ultimately my home rests in a place even more unknown, guarded by the One who has captured my soul. 

I suppose we are all wanderers carrying history on our backs. The key is to build upon it and not get trampled underneath.

"All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them." - Hebrews 11:13-16