Why I don't even slightly regret living abroad

Back in college we used to dream of this kind of life. We'd go abroad, do volunteer work, visit the great sites of the world and learn its languages so that we could get to know the people who inhabit this planet.

But something happens to Americans, something that tells us that anywhere outside the United States is a sort of black hole, and that if you go over there something bad will happen, you'll die.  Or at least you won't experience all the advantages and freedoms you have in the USA (come to find out, other countries have freedom too, and better food). More importantly, if you spend more than a few months overseas, the course of your responsible adult life will be irreversibly screwed up. We've got our five year plans, our ten year plans, and going overseas sets you back because you should be using that time to further your career. To do otherwise marks you as a person unable to grow up. Yikes.

Or at least this is the narrative I remember hearing, and the narrative that I remember being the excuse a lot of people gave for not going abroad. But I guess according to the traditional American sense I was something of a failure. I didn't have a plan or a specific goal. I graduated from college as the perpetual bridesmaid in a university whose dominant culture was to get married young. I didn't long to be a pastor's wife, or a teacher in a small Lutheran school. And that made me feel like a freak. But as it turns out, God creates a lot of different people and doesn't have only one prescribed way of being successful. Not having a specific plan made me highly open to suggestion, and this opened the door for greater adventures than I could ever have planned for myself.

Ten years after graduating high school, all my earthly possessions fit into a few suitcases, my parents have given up hope that I'll ever give them grandchildren, and my career is nothing to boast about. But something else happened that I consider more valuable than buying a house or winning awards. This happened:

Yes, it's one of those cheesy Facebook friend maps that probably makes me look like a "friend collector." But what I see on those dots is memories of randomly showing up in a country for a week or two and meeting people that the internet has allowed me to stay in touch with. I see dots in countries that I never even considered going, but which I now feel a special connection to because of people I've met. I see dots representing people that six years ago I would never have been able to talk to because we didn't speak the same language. Some of them are able to make new friends because my English classes gave them the skills to communicate with foreigners. Some of them have been patient with me while I go through awkward phases of learning their language, and motivated me to keep practicing. 

Those dots are the people who eroded my stereotypes and assumptions about other cultures. They are the people with whom I have laughed harder and cried harder than ever before in my life, people who opened up their homes and lives to me even though they had no reason to do so. 

Have I also made a difference in their lives? This I cannot say. I like to think there are at least a few people out there whose lives are better for knowing me, but who knows. At any rate, the world really does seem smaller, and I don't have a single regret about coming overseas, potentially screwing over my career at home, and choosing instead to spend six years exploring and sharing. 

Nope, everyone has a different path. For a lot of people, staying at home and carving out a space for themselves in the place they've always lived is absolutely the right thing to do, and I don't judge them a bit for it. I just hope and pray they'll extend me the same grace for making a different choice that I believe was right for me.

A week from today I'll be heading to Istanbul for one last visit. Then it's off to home and a new set of adventures. 

SDG