The Curse of the Misunderstood

We took an unexpected road trip to Colorado with Tyler this week. In a complete turn of events we made a last minute decision to pop in the car with our 2 and 5 year olds and drive 16 hours over the Rocky Mountain pass (and 16 hours back), staying in 2 hotels, 2 friends’ guestrooms, eating a lot of granola bars, rebuilding the kids’ skills in patience and adaptability, in order for us to spend more time as a family. And it couldn’t have been a better decision.

The time together as a family has brought so much peace. As we prepare to move out of our house next week, our source of strength needs to shift from a place to a state of togetherness.

Its funny how you can “know” one thing one day, and the next day you just “know” something different. For your family. For your future. For your sense of peace.

I thank God’s Spirit for this knowing. It’s not logic that moves you to let go of a house early and take insanely long road trips with your preschoolers. It’s a knowing in your gut that its time to shift focus. I’ve spent some time sitting in silence the past couple weeks, listening to scripture and sensing the stirring of His presence in the stillness. And there came this knowing thing. “It’s time to stop dreading the change and go ahead and do it”.

So here we are driving south along the Rocky Mountain foothills, leaving Northern Colorado, circling Denver to turn east, headed back to the Midwest. Headed home to pack up our house.

We took the opportunity with this long drive to visit a million old friends along the way—friends from our days as newlyweds. We’ve hung out with our old friends we knew pre-children, but instead of meeting up at coffee shops we meet up at playgrounds with all of our broods. And now after 2 days our kids cry when they leave each other. (God help me to manage the emotions—I can barely handle my own!)

The biggest thing that I saw happen on this road trip down memory lane is a healing in my heart; healing of a brokenness that I didn’t know was there.

Have you ever felt misunderstood? Well, I’ve felt my own differentness for a long time now. They say it’s pretty normal for all Third Culture Kids (TCK) who grow up between two worlds. Typical for a TCK, I feel most at home in an international setting of diverse cultures anywhere on the globe. I still, at the age of 36, feel a little bit “other” in a group of born-and-raised Americans.

This has probably served as the bedrock for my ongoing misunderstood feelings. But what I have begun to recognize is that staying in a place of “I’m different and misunderstood” prevents me from really seeing and understanding others. It becomes all about me and my differentness.

Recently a wise guide in my life, Crystal, said this: “Don’t tear down someone else’s platform in order to build your own.”

While I never would have consciously torn someone else down, I realize that at times I have belittled and looked down on those whose lives seemed easier than mine. Yikes. This is terribly humbling and if I didn’t think someone else could learn from this, I wouldn’t be admitting it on the world wide web.

But the truth is, in nursing my wounds of “misunderstood” and “alone”, I was devaluing others who seemed to have it easier. And I missed the ways that we might connect, support and understand one another.

So after a week of road-tripping, consuming lots of granola bars, coffee, and ipad time in my dad’s blue minivan (and after a week of this healing type of connecting with friends who live very different than me but can still love and understand me!) I’m driving home with a full heart.

The truth is, I am understood by some. I am valued by some. But even more importantly, I am understood and valued by God.