Comforting and unsettling

This excerpt from an email I wrote to a friend tonight pretty much captures where I am right now. This is a friend who understands what it is like for your heart to belong to two places - and to ache for the place it misses when it's not there - so I often talk with her about the realities and struggles that causes.

I was just pondering. I have been back in the US for almost a year. It's hard to believe. And I haven't used my passport at all in that time. Even stranger. But the strangest of all is that I don't mind. Actually, I like it. And that almost scares me a little. How could it be so easy and so quick to settle back to routine when I fought it so hard to begin with? Hmm. The only answer I have is that my prayers to be content with where I am were answered. I have no regrets, which I am thankful for. But I also pray that I don't become complacent and content to be settled. I hope that I am content only as long as I am supposed to be here and that the urge and urgency to move come flooding back as soon as they're meant to. The life I have here now is so different from the life I had here before, but still this is home. A lot of new people and totally different purpose. But with all the differences, the basic things remain the same. This is at the same time comforting and unsettling. But I am just taking one day at a time to see what happens. I saw the first fall leaves on the ground this week, and then today went out on the boat in my bikini. Seems to parallel my life in a lot of ways. Lots of back and forth that makes sense in a way, but in another way doesn't fit at all.

Interestingly, this goes along with what I wrote on the sidebar of this blog back in April or so. Funny how you can constantly be learning and later realize you have been learning the same thing all along...

I am finally starting to settle. I am starting to realize that I am going to be here in Seattle for an extended period of time, and realizing, also, that I am okay with that. Of course I will miss the adventure of traveling, the joy of spending time with friends in other countries, and the growing that comes from constantly having to adapt to new environments. But I know that this is where God has planted me for this season, and I am going to bloom where I am planted. I guess not all parts of a journey require movement.