A Piece of Reflection After a Pilgrimage

It was like….exactly one year ago, when I started my…well...let’s call it “pilgrimage”

That memory wasn’t at all vague. I still remember exactly what I wore, what I carried, how I felt, what I was afraid of and what I didn't care about. That day when I stepped my feet for the first time to that place beyond the ocean.

I do not mean to be hyperbolic. Well, yeah, it’s your right to think that I am. Yet I will let this writing be my reflection.  A good friend of mine (I don’t know if I should give her a credit, I hope she read this post :P) asked me about the “resume” of my experience, that’s why I have an idea to compose this reflection. Oh well, this Ignatian pedagogy also affects me so much so that I thought it is highly necessary to put all my experiences together in a reflection. I write in English so that it can reach wider audiences; including the people I meet during my pilgrimage. 

Just a week after my coming back from a place beyond the ocean, I started to notice that I’ve changed “so much it’s amazing.” Staying for a year under the same roof with the new people from a completely different culture; that is madness. Yet because of whatever miracle, the madness turns to be one of the unforgettable moments in my whole life, or at least likely to be.

Difference: Being Accepted vs Accepting

For me, a normal, spontaneous and instinctive strategy when entering a new, alien environment was trying to be accepted. I would kill myself if it pleased people.

…

Okay it was too extreme. Revision: I would kill my personality if it was the easiest way to get “accepted.” 

It was how I was taught, it was the only choice I had and it was all I knew. I thought it was the hardest thing to do in the world, to be accepted and to adjust, to please people so that you are happy, to fade your own existence so that you survive. Nah. That place beyond the ocean told me the other way around.

The most difficult thing to do in this world is to accept. Accepting that I am different and, the most important thing, accepting that they ARE different and that there is NOTHING wrong with the difference. Therefore it is completely OKAY to be who you are, rest assured, the next thing to do is just how to find the most comfortable way to coordinate and find an abstract “treaty of understanding” between the “you” you and the “they” they.

I am newly taught that the slogan “be yourself” is real and the world is HUGE. Like, HUGE with many different people living in totally different way. That it is okay to use fork instead of spoon to eat rice with left hand, that people will not label you a drunkard when you sip a glass of beer and that sneezing during meal is not the biggest sin in the world.

It is another world, and my accepting the life of this other world is just another proof that being different is not something to judge. Most of the years in my life were spent to please the “society”; because when I got out of society’s life railway, it will be alarmed, get into alert “judging” status, and send its “uniformity” signal to “help” me get back on the track. Now I feel a little bit like an idiot.

Not that I “hate” this natural phenomenon of “society talks.” It naturally happens anyway. Moreover hating will merely create another burden and waste more energy, more than necessary and even in vain. However, because now I have gathered other knowledge and learned another choice, I feel that I can be wiser in seeing things. Let this writing be my reminder: I should not judge people based on my own standard and I must consider, always, that difference should be a charm, not a shame.  

Perspective: (Not) Fun? 

What is so fun about being an Au Pair? What is not fun being one? These questions are mandatory asked. Sort of. Well, I’ll frankly tell you now, answering these questions isn’t fun at all. No offense, but when someone asks me these questions, I really want to say “Oh shut up, just do it first and you can tell yourself.” Haha. Seriously, it is not that I am annoyed with the question (or even the one asking). It is just…that the answer is simply too complicated. For me “fun” is about perspective on things. It is you who decide, whether something is fun or not. A friend of mine quoted someone (or something) saying (more or less) “do not let the event defines your mood, instead let your mood defines the event.” Get the point? No? (google is open 24/7).

The point is, instead of answering whether my experience is fun or not fun, what I can say is that…my experience is, with no doubt, maturing. It is fun like hell that I won’t forget it, yet it is completely challenging that I am thankful I am through it.

My motto in life still works right in this case:

When bad things happen, don’t give up. The day will come when you look back and laugh at them.

(Noriko in Fushigi Yuugi, a manga by Watase Yuu)

Frankly speaking, not all of my changes are acceptable for the people around me (or maybe not yet?). Just tonight someone told me that my words were too cruel. Pardon my sharp tongue; the habit of saying things outwardly without holding back is not really welcomed in my hometown. Telepathy and soliloquy are basics. See? Although I thought I am wiser, I am not wise enough to switch my attitude accordingly and apply the concept of “when in Rome do as Romans do” appropriately. It means I still need to learn to be a better person. Yet this time, I will struggle not only to be SEEN as a better person but to BE one; not only for them but also for myself.  The thing I am sure about is just the end of my last pilgrimage is the beginning of the new one. And I am so excited for it.